Summer is approaching, and that suggests getaway. For me, summer ignites a sensation of euphoria and event that was integrated in throughout school years, when summer was a long three-month reprieve from school, a full quarter of the year. When summer season came it resembled crossing a limit into paradise. And there were always songs to declare the arrival of summer, and capture that feeling of event.
We’ll go swimming every day
No time to work just time to play
If your folks grumble simply say
It’s summertime
Even when I got old adequate to work summer season tasks, that feeling of summer season liberty stuck to me. It was a different frame of mind, a break from the school routine. Even when I worked, there was constantly travel, and I seized every chance. Summer season is when everybody takes a trip. Summertime is practically synonymous with getaway travel.
What excellent anticipation it was when summer approached! When that last day of school finally came, the doors flew open and the kids break out like a surge. When you’re school age, three months is a long period of time. When school blurt it felt as if you were taking a look at a stretch of time that stretched to infinity.
Those summertime holiday memories are loaded into the songs of summer. When you hear those sentimental records, the memories come gathering fresh, as if you were transported back to those times.
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high …
The songs revive images and tactile memories of summers past, the sunshine and warm air, the odor of fresh lawn, ocean breezes, whatever cluster of impressions are linked to that sound in your own summer memories.
A few of the tunes are about summer season things. Others are summer songs since that was when you heard them, when they moved you and became a part of you, and branded themselves on that minute and the location where you were.
No records ever embodied summertime more than those of the Beach Boys. They were everything about the teenagers’ experience of summer season in California.
Coming from the landlocked middle of the country, I dreamed longingly of California. Los Angeles was the supreme fairytale land, where dreams come to life. Hollywood, the motion picture industry, the recording industry, heavenly weather condition, beaches, mountains … Disneyland! It appeared like paradise.
The surfing songs, “Internet user Girl” and “Surfin’ USA”; the cars and truck tunes: “Little Deuce Coup” and “Shut Down” echoed throughout the country. Those people caught inland experienced California through the tunes. I hurt to go there.
Growing up in the Midwest I constantly felt far from all the interesting things that were taking place on the planet. The Beach Boys songs painted sound pictures of the mythical California. It was like heaven to me, but seemed inaccessible permanently. How could I ever find my way to such a miraculous place, with the beaches and automobiles and California girls?
Then one day I got my chance to join my father, his spouse and her 2 kids on a trip to California. We headed to Los Angeles where my uncle lived, and I got to experience the great world of the Beach Boys.
It was 1965, and it was an exhilarating time to be a teen. The music of the time was energetic and full of life and pledge. We packed into my papa’s blue Chevrolet, five people, and cruised throughout the American Southwest to Los Angeles.
Keeping three kids reasonably civilized on a drive of numerous hours is always an obstacle. And five people loaded into a small area for hours on end can become a combustible mix. To smooth things over, the vehicle radio was on most of the time, and though my dad didn’t take care of Top 40 music, that was basically what you got on the automobile radio. It should have driven him insane after a while hearing me sing along with songs that to him were aggravatingly repetitive and trite.
Here we come again, ooooooh, Capture us if you can, ooooh.
It was the Dave Clark 5 clattering out of the dashboard speaker, and I sang along with it.
“Oh no,” stated my dad. “Not again …”
The songs of that summer season still restore the rush of bliss of California. The trip replays completely color when I hear: “Like a Wanderer”, “I Got You Babe”, “Heart Loaded With Soul”, “Complete satisfaction”, “Eve of Damage”, “Do You Think in Magic?” and lots more. The songs revive the feeling of the moment, due to the fact that they belonged to what felt so proficient at the time.
We stayed with my cousins in Northridge. I got to take part with their life in California. They walked barefoot. I tried to, but the scorching pavement burned my feet.
We got to see the television reveals they had, an abundance compared to what we had back in the Midwest. The foods they had seemed area age, like straws that turned milk into chocolate milk. It was all different from the cumbersome world I knew. It seemed like a much more advanced world, like sci fi.
I even got to try browsing at Santa Monica Beach. My father captured a home film of me in fact getting up and riding a wave for a couple of seconds before I wiped out. It was the summer season of “California Girls” and they were much more stunning than the images stimulated by the song.
It was fantastic. When the journey came to an end, I disliked to return to my ordinary life. However my life was permanently brightened by those experiences. I had seen possibilities I had actually never seen, and that was permanent. I would never lose those memories. The songs would bring them back.
A number of years later on I got my chance to explore that other California in the north: San Francisco. It was 1967, and already I was old adequate to drive. I joined my good friend Jeff in his red Ford Falcon convertible and we headed straight for San Francisco. It was the Summer season of Love, and San Francisco was the center of all of it. It was the center of the new designs of music, the Jefferson Plane, Big Sibling and the Holding Business, the Grateful Dead and many others.
If you’re going to San Francisco
Make sure to use some flowers in your hair
We drove across the Great Plains, climbed to the top of the Continental Divide and then began the long descent to the coast, across the desolate, dreamy landscapes of Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. When we reached Reno, we crossed over into that legendary paradise.
The moment we crossed the state line it appeared we went into another world. It wasn’t just a line on a map. The border was drawn at a location where the landscape changed suddenly. We left the desert behind and discovered ourselves in the verdant nation of Tahoe National Forest.
When we reached Sacramento, the capital, it was broiling hot. From that point we came down gradually and the temperature dropped mile by mile. We had the top down and the radio roaring as the Bay Location appeared. It unfolded marvelously to the tune of “Light My Fire,” with its baroque organ roaring into the wind: Oakland, the Bay, the bridges, Alcatraz. It was as if the DJ had specially selected that tune to accompany our grand entryway into the wonderful city.
The expedition of San Francisco was thrilling. We walked through crowds on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, stood on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. It was invaluable to be able to see personally what we had heard a lot about. It lived up to its track record in some methods. In others, my fantasies disintegrated in collision with truths.
It was such an exciting summer season, and we had actually headed to the center of all of it. Naturally, there will never ever be another summer like that. That innocence is irretrievable. However the music of that summer season will constantly bring those memories back to me, fresh.
Your humble press reporter,
A. Colin Treadwell