It was that once upon a time moment that instantly connects us with all the wonder that lies ahead. On the first day of summer 2024 two young boys and an even younger girl were in their front lawn chasing fireflies against the rose-colored skies as dusk settled in. The beginning of summer, filled with the dreams of long days in the sun. The whimsical tales of splashing water, titillating sunsets, and shiny green baseball diamonds presented in cathedrals of the gods. The hope of a new, or first, love fills our heart before eventually breaking it. The fall will come faster than we want leaving us empty with only echoes to sustain us through the next three seasons. The summer will come again, leaving 90 days to repair the damage. The harder the winter of our lives staggers us the more we appreciate the summers of our coming of age. For the writer there is no better genre than summer stories of found and lost love. In the screenplay ‘Summer of 42’, (made into a movie in 1972) the main character Hermi (based on author Herman Raucher summer of 1942 on the Nantucket sound) was roughly the age of the boys’ chasing fireflies on the first night of the most magical season of them all. As the summer of 2024 began the youth of this day can still relate to Hermi as he weaved his way through the dizziness of a fresh summer. “Maybe this will be the summer I walk away with it all.”
Throughout the centuries the litterateur’s metaphorically bed all the seasons, but none with the same passion as the summer. Not because of the idyllic narrative we tend to create, but because of this higher level of sharp sensitivity that tingles our senses. While the winter of our memories are mostly of struggle and gloomy flashbacks of survival, the summer comes back to us as fields of gold and alluring star filled nights. The poignant views of past seasons in the sun are often connected to a song or a place. A lake, or a pool, and most prominently the ocean.
A ball game, a drive-in movie, and precious stolen moments with the object of our affection. The vision in the summer dress who dances barefoot in the sand and renders a sight of both enchanting ecstasy, and hopeless despair. For the movie character Hermi those dreams turned suddenly into reality one night. But the very next morning turned to into an emptiness that would last through all the seasons of his remaining life. The background noises of summer rise far above the sounds of any other competing season. The pace of your heart gets into a rhythm of waves crashing, clubs meeting balls, crickets humming, and sailboats casting their sail on the reflections of turquoise lakes. The hanging willows distinctly separate the shade from the from bright light of the sun. And while our bodies want to soak in as much of the suns energy while it lasts the shade is a soothing place to seek refuge and calculate our next move.
When summer moves past the solstice the days begin to grow shorter as the “dog days of summer “approach. Soon will come “summers official” holiday celebrating the birth of the United States of America. A day, that in the year 1776, a group of revolutionary colonists signed a Declaration of Independence cutting the chord of their mother (Great Britain). The Fourth of July to this day remains the center piece of independence, freedom, and all things summer. The prep work of the fireflies in June are the prelude to a huge firework display. In the summer of 1942 American young men were being sent to Europe to combat forces of evil, doing their best to protect the freedoms of the individual sovereignty declared in the Declaration of Independence. Many of these young men would not return to take in the summer of 1943. For the likes of Hermi and his summer running mates, who by fortunate timing, did not have to make the ultimate sacrifice associated with storming beaches abroad. Hermi, Benji and Oscy did not lose their lives, or any limbs, only their innocence.
In the summer of 1942 America escalated its war efforts due east, “over there”. Hermi would spend that summer out of sight of the fight, exploring an island on the New England Sound as a 15-year-old coming of age. By only a couple of years Benji, and his peers had been 3 years too early to carry weapons on the beaches of Omaha and Normandy. Their main concern on soft summer days was sneaking into pharmacies seeking contraceptives to protect themselves from sexual conquests that were unlikely to come to pass.
The Summer of 1942 has seen 82 summers past as we move towards the canicular days of 2024. Not much has changed about the design of summer in that stretch of years. The environmentalists tell us the earth is getting hotter and dooms day is just around the corner. In the summer of Herman Raucher’s youth, it was the Nazis, or the Communists that were the boogie man. In the summer of 2024, it is mostly the enemies within us that have become our most feared opponents. But the foes of our present still must step aside when we arrive at the summer solstice and past the fourth of July. In the movie ‘Summer of 42’ the main character (Hermie) is up to the normal tomfoolery of a summer in a beach community. During Hermie’s summer explorations he falls for an older woman whose husband has gone off to make the supreme sacrifice. When we look back into the past, we can see parallel events of today to answer questions as to the why’s of the present and prognostications of our future. The average temperatures on the Nantucket sound are similar in the summer of 2024 as they were in the summer of 1942. Teenage boys and girls still search the summer nights for romance, and sunsets of orange fire don’t have a care for what calendar year it is. The bombs still fly on the other side of the pond, but just like the summer of 1942 when the whole world was at war and in peril, there were discerns of guiltlessness to be found. In the incorruptibility of our summer youth the magic floats in front of our eyes as the storm clouds build up fast and dump the wrath of nature upon our nurturing. For Hermi, like the stories of many teens, the summer was a sudden lesson on the frailties of our lives and how fast all can be found, and then lost.
At the end of the movie “Summer of 42” Hermi recollects all the experience he has gained in the summer that was now behind him. Still, hauntingly he tries to come to terms with all that has transpired. Hermi discovered the summer wishes us goods things. It heightens every sensation to an intensity that will never be found in other seasons. At the same time Hermi learned the ecstasy that can go along with love sometimes evaporates faster than any anxiety waiting for it to be delivered. Yes, summer can guide us to the wonder of it all and eventually leave us standing desperately alone when the subtle shift of the wind turns to fall. We all have those summer moments that will stay with us no matter what life dishes out in the isolated winters of our lives. Raucher wrote his Academy Award screenplay about his summer coming of age story in 1971, 30 years after spending the summer on the Massachusetts beach with his aunt and uncle. His bittersweet story centered around the night he spent with the young lady of his dreams, (Dorothy.. played stunningly by Jennifer O’Neill) the same day of her discovering her fiancé had become a casualty of war. Hermi is the narrator who takes us through a summer on the Nantucket sound in the eyes of a 15-year-old and his two buddies (Oski and Benji) in the year 1942. As we head directly into the summer of 2024 the circumstance of the world is quite like Hermi all those years ago. The young men and women coming of age still can relate to the same arousing energy as all the summers that came before.
“The summer knows, the summer’s wise, she sees the doubt within your eyes.” In beginning days of the summer of 2024, the 15-year-olds are still running in the lawns and sandy beaches chasing elusive fireflies. In Hermie’s case the fireflies morphed into the sharp arrow of a love that would penetrate his soul like no other ever would. We all have a summer of “42”. Was it the time at your relative’s cabin, or local watering hole, or Long Beach Island, or maybe a lake in the Catskills? As we tread timidly into the summer of 2024 another reckoning of lost innocence presents itself. In the real-world Herman Raucher had his first experience with romance in a beach house on the Nantucket sound.. A summer that built into a confusing end of bittersweet permanence. Hermi would never she the object of his adolescent affection again. The War across the Atlantic would end three summers later, and the summers retuned to some sort of normalcy for the entire world. Watching the ‘Summer of 42’ is sure to bring a tear to your eye. It is sure to bring you back to the summer place where you seemed to jump far ahead while at the same time leaving the most tender parts of you in scrapbooks. In the last scene of the movie Hermi looks at the house of his summer fling before turning to join his friends Oski and Benji back at the beach. The narrator tells us ‘I never saw Dorothy again or learned of what became of her.” “And if we’ve learned our lessons well there is little more for her to tell.” As we dive into the summer of 2024 there is still hope that maybe, just maybe this will be the summer we find it all.
