"THE SUMMER KNOWS-----"

Last night I took my 90 year old mom to a movie---the one she picked was "Grownups". She is one of those, for sure, but I was still surprised at her choice. It turned out to be just what we both needed---a good time. This film is miraculously getting good box office turn-out, which has to mean we are desperate for a little comic relief---even if the comedy is worse than bad, and the relief is mixed with embarrassment for laughing at such low brow humor. Adam Sandler stars in this typical fiasco of a bunch of guy friends reuniting after many years for the funeral of an old basketball coach. Sandler is his usual goof ball, but endearing self. You gotta love this guy--he has a sweetness about him that shines through his slapstick, obvious comedy. In coming together again, the "grownups" guys rekindle their friendships and regress to acting like outrageous, adolescent
boys---and realizing that what they had achieved in life isn't nearly as good as what they once had---love for each other and the simple pleasure of one another's company, devoid of status or material things. It is all rather silly, predictable, and crazy, yet nostalgic and fun---like a day at the beach with old friends who know each other well enough to be silly, predictable and a little crazy at times. And like ice cream and lemonade, this movie probably wouldn't have worked in the more serious winter season, but it was a perfect summer treat---maybe because the summer knows that once in a while, we need to feel like kids again.

At the end of the movie, I asked my mom what she thought of it---she said, "Stupid", but she was smiling. So was I. "Grownups" had reminded me of the importance of good friends, good times, and the goodness that they bring our in us. I had just recently spoken on the phone to an old girl friend who lives far away from me. Our friendship is laced with memories. We have seen each other at our best and our worst, our happiest, and our saddest, our hearts whole and broken. We have both survived long marriages, children, and in her case, the early death of a husband. At one point in the conversation, as she was telling me how she fills her days now with many activities and the blessings of good health and loving, adult children, I said, "You have a good life". She agreed. She had weathered much, and so had our friendship. I was happy for her and me---we had come a long ways from teen age gal pals to now, "grownups".

I remembered back to a long-ago summer day, sitting under the shade of a tree on a southern Califoronia hilltop,she expressing her unrequited love for a boy who hardly knew she existed, and I trying to console her. She would later do the same for me when all I could do was cry my broken hearted tears, and all she could do was be there. She loved the song, "Blueberry Hill, and poems, and dancing. I loved pretty much the same things. She made me laugh like no one else could. We talked about how someday we would live together before settling down to marriage and children. In those days, living with a girl friend in an apartment was considered very glamorous---living with a guy was not even considered, much less done. The next summer found us graduated from high school and both working at Disneyland. We worked the evening shift , so we would spend the afternoons at the beach, then report directly to work, sand falling out of our shoes and clothing. Life was good, but we knew it would soon change, and it did. I took a job with United Airlines, and she went back to school. But we reunited later and got that apartment---it wasn't so glamorous, but we thought we were. We learned to ski that winter on the mountain tops of Colorado and joked about how hot "Norbert", our ski instructor was. I will never forget my first downhill run, and how as I went speeding totally out of control, headed straight toward the parking lot, I heard my friend yell, "Snow plow, Kel, snow plow!!", the then ski term for "brake, brake!!" She had jolted me out of my frozen fear and may have saved my life! A year later, we went our separate ways. The next few times we saw each other were for short visits and then our respective weddings, where we stood at each other's side as maid or matron of honor, well aware that things would never be quite the same. We were married ladies now, no longer first in one another's lives. The story goes on from there, with many plot lines, twists, turns, and sacred secrets---but we are still friends. Now, whenever I hear "On Blueberry Hill", I think of her and that day on our hill---how young and new we were, how time and the whole world seemed to stretch out below us, and how quickly it has all gone by. We are , indeed, all grown up, but veterans of life---she a widow, but a mom of four children, and two grandchildren; I a wife and mom of three children and four grandchildren. We are a little worn, and a lot sassier. But when we occasionally talk on the phone or see each other, we are none of those things---we are sweet and seventeen again, giggly and just happy to still be alive and together again---two old friends who remember each other as girls on the way to becoming women. There have been other friends and other good times, but she was my first BFF (best friend forever), and she is still the one who makes me laugh the hardest and one of the few allowed to see my tears.

Little do we always see, that on the journey to growing up, we are living some of the best of times, and meeting some of the dearest friends we will ever know. Someone once said, "Youth is wasted on the young". I don't think so---part of the bliss of being young is not knowing what lies ahead; and part of the comfort of old age is remembering the joys of being young! I may not be so new anymore, but in my heart lives a summertime who knew that some things last forever, and some BFF's like wine, become even better with age---or LOLWA! (Little old ladies with attitude!)