Remembering summer's pleasures, looking forward to fall

Fall is drawing near. Cooler temperatures are heralding what many medical professionals consider a "psychological new year." New beginnings — schools are starting, new school clothes bought, backpacks filled to capacity and pencils sharpened.

I remember how the teachers would pile on mountains of homework. I'd study a little more for a while, and then things would get back to normal. If that went on forever, I just don't know. A new broom sweeps clean, as my mother used to say!

I'd wear my overly hot new school clothes to show them off on the first couple of days, and then go back to the summer ones, even white items that weren't supposed to be worn after Labor Day, at least until "winter white" came into fashion. There was always the trip to Benjamin's Department Store in Salisbury or the old Braunstein's store on Rehoboth Avenue. The store was fall-like with the Brownies’ beanie-style cap on an acorn surrounded by colorful autumn leaves. I insisted on having one, but not being a joiner, I attended only one Brownies meeting. But I had scored the cap!

Of course, as usual, my mother just had to insert herself, like she did by joining my little girls’ ballet class! So, better to nip it in the bud. Actually, if I tell the truth, I was worse than even a lackluster ballerina anyhow. I was more interested in the sequins they gave out for our costumes.

During summer vacation, I was free to pursue my own interests. No school to get up for then until after Labor Day, even if I was awakened by a nightmare! I think children should have the summer recess to pursue their dreams, and to think or not think. There were no computers then to post required reading lists or homework. Even my mother, a diehard school teacher as she was, agreed with that.

While the old people in my family napped, or my grandmother read her Bible on summer afternoons at our cottage on Rodney Street in Dewey Beach, I would sit at the breakfast bar and write or paint. It was there that I produced my first treatise, a booklet titled "My Life with Old Women," complete with illustrations. It was passed around the sands on Olive Avenue and read by my mother's group of friends. My mother dropped it into the sand, but one lady recently told me that she had plucked it up and saved it all these years, like a bottle with a love letter tossed in the ocean and found years later.

I have fond memories of summers past, which always seem to end with the Jazz Funeral. Sitting at the table at the beach house enjoying a breeze from Delaware Bay, munching on Silver Queen corn is one. We had it almost every night. Later on, the ears would be shucked into a pot of Doc Martin pole beans, the green and yellow colors made more vibrant with fresh red tomatoes added in with care. I don't even know if you can find Silver Queen corn anymore.

Then there were the blackberries plucked from our backyard in Dewey and boiled into a beautiful, deep-magenta stew and served on buttered toast. And there were the red stars of the summer — fresh crabs caught off the marina dock down the street by me and my summer friend, Georgeanne. My mother would sauté the smallest soft-shell ones at 10 p.m., and we'd eat them up followed by a dessert of blueberry buckle.

There were also fried tomatoes to savor, and much later on, I learned to enjoy sliced summer tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, fresh basil and olive oil. I remember stopping by the Nassau Orchards produce stand off Route 1 north of Lewes back in the day. I used to love painting it and the peach tree orchards across the highway. There was even a field for picking raspberries in the back.

Bozie’s Place on the Forgotten Mile near Dewey Beach was another spot I loved to paint. But now, golden sunflowers and soon, fields of orange pumpkins will usher us into autumn. The Sunday before the Monday of winter. People must really love the autumn time and Halloween, because I've recently seen displays of skeletons, ghosts and pumpkins not only in the aisles of Hobby Lobby, but also popping up in the front yards of homes.

It's Labor Day as I write to you, and as the classical music station plays, I hear Gershwin's tuneful, "Summertime and the Livin' is Easy." Lo and behold, one of Vivaldi's compositions from his "Four Seasons" follows. Will "Autumn Leaves" be next?

Pumpkin latte, pumpkin butter creamer and even pumpkin whipped cream were in Walmart a month ago and now have appeared in Food Lion. I can't help it; I've stocked up. I love to see orange, which is my favorite color, on the containers in my fridge. Make way for pumpkin pie!