One Summer ...

One summer I got a crush on a girl who was 11 and had a sunburn. I was 11 and sunburned at the time as well.

One summer my father planted an herbaceous border in our yard. I helped him plant the Santolina incana and mix in the peat moss. On weekdays he would go out after dinner and water in the dark, so that if I went out to get him I could only see the spray from the hose reflecting the porch light, and hear his whistling.

One summer I went to see a new movie called "Annie Hall" with two women who played the harp. One harp player didn't like the movie, one harp player really didn't like it, and I liked it a lot.

One summer I spent a lot of time in my room trying to learn how to handstand. But one of my wrists was not flexible enough.

One summer a photographer was doing an ad for a bank and needed a woman to make a funny face. He called up my mother because he had heard that she could make funny faces. The two of them went out onto the front porch, and he said to her, "Okay, now make a funny face." She grimaced, then laughed. He said, "Try not to laugh. Good. Now puff out your cheeks." So she puffed out her cheeks. The ad, announcing a higher interest rate on savings accounts, came out in the newspaper. The picture looked nothing like my mother. I spent a good deal of time making funny faces in the mirror in case a photographer called me.

One summer I went to a science camp called Camp Summersci. We were driven in a used hearse to places of scientific interest. In Herkimer, N.Y., we chiseled quartz crystals called Herkimer diamonds out of a rocky hillside. One of the campers was a kid who knew more about the Lord of the Rings than I did. We talked about the Lord of the Rings for many hours in the back of the hearse.

One summer my father and I put up a basketball hoop on the garage, and I played basketball with myself for a week and then stopped.

One summer a new friend said we should learn taxidermy at home. He sent off for Lesson One. The course instructed us to look around for dead squirrels to stuff. I told him I didn't know where any dead squirrels were. His voice was already changing, and mine wasn't. He laughed: "Heh-heh." I laughed nervously back. He shook his head and said, "See, I knew you'd laugh. All I have to do is pretend to laugh, and you laugh."

One summer my girlfriend was unhappy with me when we went out for dinner because I pulled the onions out of my salad with my fingers and put them on the bread plate along with a glob of salad dressing. Later I leapt up from the table to watch a brief fistfight between a waiter and a patron. I said I was sorry, and she forgave me.

One summer my daughter learned how to read the word "misunderstanding."

One summer I rode to the top of a hill on my bike and then coasted, and the wind came under the back of my neck and down in my shirt and cooled me down. It felt very good. This was somewhere in West Virginia.

One summer my friend Steve and I went out to a movie. He was getting his medical degree then. He suggested we go buy some cheese at the Super Duper. That sounded like a good idea to me. We bought two large pieces of mozzarella cheese and got into his car and ate them, talking about the current state of science fiction.