Jan Muserlian-Peters of Huntington: Wordsworth and my '60s summers

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. . . .

— From “Lines Written
a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth

During these challenging times, the picture of my mind revives my childhood summers — when I had forever.

Come back in time with me, to 1960s June days, and enter a life before electronic devices. Summer was the first real time of freedom. For me, it was always the beginning of life — the way summer warmed and rolled over a neighborhood, spreading like a slow breath, and the way the wind had just the right touch. Some days were charged with sweet smells, nothing but lilacs and honeysuckle in the air. Other days were for hearing every channel of the universe. Yet some days were for tasting watermelon sugar. The finest days were for feeling the sun enveloping me like a warm blanket.

I remember running, leaping, pirouetting through my childhood sprinkler. Envisioning it as my harp, I’d pluck, stroke, encircle each ray of water as if I were conducting a symphony.

Gazing onto my street, I relive playing curb ball/baseball on my block, with bases marked with rocks. Blue and pink-chalked hopscotch rectangles on the street, cardboard forts on the lawn, jacks and marbles scattered on backyard tables, we ran and slid down hot metal sliding ponds, skipping our way around the post-World War II new suburban town of Commack.

On our street, lined with concrete strip driveways and green/brown dandelioned lawns, lay Hula-Hoops, jump ropes, Duncan yo-yos, and bicycle wheels holding baseball cards with clothes pins, echoing the sound of motorcycles — ready to take us away.

I remember the smell of salt water.

The ocean beach water was clear and clean then, even the seaweed was a spinach green color. As a child, the night was too long before a beach day. Peering out my window in the early dawn, hoping the sun peeked out, when I saw it display a part of itself, my heart leaped up like Wordsworth’s when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Walking on the hot sand, I hopped onto strangers’ blankets to cool my feet. I loved when the waves weren’t too rough, and I could just stand in the water and let the waves lift me — rising, falling, zero gravity, I was riding the merry-go-round of life. Then, like ambrosia to the gods, we ate bologna sandwiches and potato chips.

I remember the feeling of excitement going to a drive-in movie. We wore our pajamas, and my dad spread blankets and pillows in the back seat of our 1960 Chevrolet station wagon. With the big back window of our car open, we were on our way to see the largest movie screen I ever saw! The static from the large clumsy gray speaker resting on the window and the sound of crickets reminded me that we were half inside and half outside — a thrilling dimension. The car became another room: cozy, a family unto itself.

I will never forget the first movie I saw at the Commack Drive-In: “West Side Story.” It moved me so much that I fell in love with music and dancing for as long as I live.

Falling asleep on the way home, hearing the whispering voices of my parents as they carried my brother and me into our beds, their voices held a security — a complete security — that we yearn for as we grow older.

As I awaken from my summer reverie, I watch my sons living. I wonder what present sights and sounds the picture of their minds will revive, and what moments will become “life and food for future years.”

Jan Muserlian-Peters

Huntington