A Fire's Shadow

       Those Crazy Days of Summer

    Sometimes after dinner on a hot August night, while sitting in the back yard with our family around the campfire, we talk about the good old times, and it makes life worth all the pain. Just seeing the look of my grand kids faces, as the marshmallows are toasted and passed around is satisfying enough. They enjoy the way the fire licks the half-blackened logs and the crystal blue flames comb over the small crevasses of the burning ambers, deep in the memories of our minds. Since the first time man discovered fire, he sat and stared with a passion at the glow of light that illuminates the tired faces of the gathered clan. Does it protect us from the shadows of the night or is it a gentle friend with a broad smile, which makes us feel safe in its circle of light? Looking into the charred remnants of wood bark, seeing the sparks jump from limb to log, my mind wanders back to a blissful time of the days when school was out for the summer. School for me was not easy in those days of nuns and brothers who controlled the catholic teachings with an iron fist and discipline that mimicked the Spanish Inquisition. By the third grade, I was given a reprieve to public school and a new look on life. Enough said about those feared memories and on to summer vacation.
    Stanley was a child hood friend of the early years back in Massapequa Park. We played in the dirt, broke basement windows and caught lighting bugs together. Things were different back then, love was in the air and there were no wars to think of around the thick of the baby boomer times. Our next-door neighbor John Myers was a gentle man, with black hair and a big smile, and he was Stanley’s dad, which made him OK in my book. We made our home in a Cape with dark green shingles and a large bay window in the living room. It was new when we moved in and stayed there for four years. Sometimes families separate and ours were no different. Therefore, my mother, brother, sister and I moved back to the old neighborhood, to live with my grandmother in Marine Park Brooklyn. To be born half polish is a wonder in its self, because the bond of family tradition is stronger than the love of life. We called grandma Babcia, that’s polish for grandmother. We pronounced it (Bop`chee). She was born around 1891, south of Krakow Poland and was named Suzanka.
    Raised on a farm with her brothers and sisters, she stayed there until she was seventeen, and then left for America. I left this short because she left the same part short with me. America, that’s where she met my grandfather, whose name was Jonick, which I was named after. He worked in construction during the Great Depression era and found work in demolition after it ended. He died while tearing down the 1938 world’s fair in New York. The roof caved in on him and 38 of his co-workers.  I wish I had memories of him, but I was born sixteen years later. Our bond of life with the clan is strong, and while we do not see eye to eye, there is an unspoken love for each other. As the home fire burns, the shadows of life draw heavy lines on the faces of the group that gathers close. The warm memories they kindle make us whole. Sometimes burnt offerings can be as a sought of ritual or homage to the gods. But then again, we may just like the wistful flames as they lick the sides of the burning embers.
    The summer of 63’ was a time of beginnings and ends, for it was the year that changed the world as we remember it. But for an eight year old boy, the world was full of fun and wonders. The sounds of rock and roll played from the seven transistor AM radio that you kept in your shirt pocket. We knew all the songs back then on the AM dial.  The music made you feel good to be young. The smell of fresh cut grass filled the afternoon air as we waited for Mister Softy, Freezer Fresh or The Bungalow Bar truck to come around the corner. You could tell when they were near by the sound of the bell on the loud speaker that stood on the front of the truck. That single gong would have kids running to their stoops, where mom would give them a quarter for an ice cream bar. Then came the waiting, standing in line by the curb for the Ice cream man to arrive. The big white truck slowly rolling down the street, it seemed to last for ever.
    Summer rainstorms would approach from a westerly direction, and we would see the thickening purple clouds build over the houses that were across the street. Terrifying as those storms were, with the lightning bolts splitting the black sky and the roar of thunder that shook the very ground we stood on, I was never afraid but drawn to the fury of the storm, like a moth to a flame. We’d count the seconds between the lightning and thunder to find the distance of the last bolt as it hit the ground. The trees would tell us of the rains approach by flipping their leaves up side down. Babcia had a saying that the old folks knew when and how long, it would rain, by the size and speed of the raindrops. When the drops hit the puddles and caused large bubbles, this was an indication, that the rain would not last long, but if the rain was steady and soft it would hold up most of the day. There's nothing like a storm on a hot summer’s day to take the heat out of a blazing afternoon.