Summer of 1984

It's strange how you can have really intense sense memories. It could be a song, a smell, a food, anything really that transports you back to a moment in time. The summer of 1984 was one that i remember so fondly to this day, and one that i remember the most due to the sense memories that are inescapable.

I spent my entire summer of 1984 at my Aunt Donna and Uncle Bill's house with my 2 cousins Janiece and Billy. My sister went back and forth from our home and our aunt and uncles but i stayed the entire summer. Most times, their house was more home to me than my with my mom and my sister, and i had some other attachments there as well, most notably, my girlfriend Sandi and my friend Toby.

This is Sandi now, but i swear she looks almost the same today as she did when she was 14. She was my first older woman and the first girl i did "alot" of things with. More important than that, she was the first girlfriend i had the experience of knowing what it was like to truly be "in love" with someone, and feel love back. We were pretty young, but the experiences we shared that summer were pretty intense. More on that in a bit..

Most of my day times that summer were spent with my friend Toby, and my nights with Sandi. A typical day for me would be spending a few hours at Toby's house playing the Dungeons and Dragons board game

and then playing Adventure on the Atari 2600, after lunch we would go to the 5 and dime on Bustleton Ave and buy kites to replace the ones we lost or destroyed, or extra twine to see how far up we could send one, then off to the fields to test our new monstrosities. It never got old and Toby was a good friend to have. We lost touch after a few summers when he moved away, and i often wonder how his life turned out.

After dinner with the family, many of the kids in the neighborhood would gather outside with beach chairs and sit around shooting the shit for hours, often with a radio playing the songs of that summer, and as the sun set and fireflies came out, we often started playing truth or dare...this usually meant me and Sandi wandering off on our own and disappearing for the rest of the night to spend quality time together. Yeah we made out ALOT, but alot of times we would just hold hands and go for walks, or find a quiet place and cuddle and talk, these were great times.

Usually just before 11pm me and my cousins would go back home, and sit in front of the tv eating chocolate cream pie or ice cream as we watched Video Rock on channel 17, I can no longer hear the song "I Want Candy" without thinking about that summer as it was the theme song for Video Rock.

On one particular night that summer. something really bad happened. As i was sleeping in the middle of the night, There was a fire at Sandi's house. I will never forget hearing the news that morning and how sick i felt in my stomach, even after hearing everyone made it out ok. I stood outside the burned and charred remains of her house for hours in shock and sadness, and to this day if i smell the burnt remains of a house fire, it makes me think of that day and of Sandi, and that was 26 years ago. I was sad and devastated, she had to go stay with relatives until they got a new place, and our peaceful routine was disrupted. I spent the next day or so gutted wondering when i would see her again and as i was sitting on this little hill near her old house crying, there she appeared, and it was so good to see her and hold her and comfort her.

Things weren't exactly the same after that, instead of seeing her every night, it was a few days or nights a week we got together, but one thing is for sure, for the remainder of that summer, we made the most of every moment we had and took nothing for granted. For as long as i live, there will always be a special place in my heart for her, and we are still friends to this day. This was our song and every time i hear it, i smile.