Summertime, Sweet Summertime
Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are here again – and, yes, I stole those words from the great Nat King Cole – but who better to steal from – than from the man who immortalized them back in the ’60s?
Some folks don’t like summertime in Fresno. They say it’s too hot. But I’ve always loved summers around these parts — they were nothing less than magical to me when I was growing up here.
Summer in Fresno meant three months off from school. And that meant I could play baseball or softball or wiffle ball on my neighborhood streets with my buddies every single night until it got dark – and it never got dark until 8:30 or so. Even after the sun had set, we’d try to play underneath our street lights. We never wanted to stop.
Summer in Fresno meant buying ice cream every night from that ice cream truck that always drove by. My favorite ice cream was shaped like a flying saucer and came on a plastic spoon. I think it cost 10 cents. There was nothing better – ever — than eating ice cream on a hot summer night in Fresno. I can taste it even now, more than a half-century later.
Summer in Fresno when I was a kid meant getting to stay up late and watch Jack Paar – and later, Johnny Carson – on the “Tonight Show.” My dad loved watching “Tonight,” and so did I. Even way back then, that Carson guy looked like he might have staying power.
Summer in Fresno meant constant listening to my transistor radio. I carried it everywhere — even took it to those street baseball games. I tuned to Giants and Dodgers games – but I really liked listening to KYNO and KMAK. Those were the glorious years when those two rock radio stations engaged in a gigantic ratings war and had great DJ’s.
I remember them to this day. On KYNO it was Sam Schwan, Dick Carr, Les Turpin, Glenn Adams and Ed Mitchell. On KMAK it was Sunny Jim Price, Fred Kiemel, Big Daddy Dave McCormick, Frank Terry and Tom Maule.
I loved those guys and always fantasized about how much money they made, how glamorous their lives and careers were and how I wanted to be one of them.
On weekends, I’d pull away from rock music and tune into that great NBC Radio Network program, “Monitor,” on KMJ. That’s the show that got me so excited – I went into broadcasting. It’s the show I wrote my masters thesis about at Fresno State, and the program that I eventually wrote two books about. Yes, you might say “Monitor” changed my life — and I first heard it one summer in Fresno.
Summer meant spending time outside late at night, looking up at the stars and seeing how they moved across the sky. I was so intrigued, I got a little “sky book” and learned about all the visible constellations. I still have that little book, and I still know those constellations’ names — and, yes, I still look up at them on summer nights.
Summer meant having our bedroom windows open to try to catch the nighttime breeze — any breeze. And because my windows were open and facing east, I could hear the Santa Fe trains as they rolled by on tracks that were more than a mile away. And as I listened to those trains on those hot summer nights so long ago, I fantasized about a career as a train conductor, riding the rails across the Valley and across California and across the great, vast expanse of these United States. It was a childhood dream — and I’d still like to do it.
Summer meant swimming, but not in our fancy backyard pool. We didn’t have one, and neither did any of my friends. Instead, my mom bought me a cheap, inflatable model. It held maybe a foot of water — all coming from our garden hose — and I can still feel how cold that water was when I’d step into it, and eventually sit in it, in the middle of our backyard near Fresno High. The water in that inflatable made me feel like a million bucks.
Summer meant going downtown with my mom when she made her weekly shopping trip. This was before Fulton Street was torn up for the mall. I can remember going into all the great department stores that made downtown a destination back then — Penney’s, Gottschalks, Montgomery Wards, Roos/Atkins, Walter Smith’s, Harry Coffee’s, Woolworth’s, Newberry. Back then, our family doctor’s office was in the great Patterson Building at Tulare and Fulton. All the sky-rises that had been built downtown in the 1910’s and 20’s were full doctors’ and dentists’ and lawyers’ offices. Now, of course, those sky-rises are empty, the department stores are long-gone, the mall is being torn out — and downtown is dead except for memories.
Oh, yes, I miss that old downtown, and I truly miss those long-ago summers in Fresno. Trust me — if I ever find a time machine, I’m going to climb inside, set the date for about 1961, and re-live those grand and glorious moments when I was oh-so-young and had my whole life ahead of me. And, yes, I’ll re-live that time — right here in Fresno.