Second-best summer ever

Not only did I experience much, but I embraced spontaneity and—get this—puttered!

AT THE CUTHBERT AMPHITHEATER Sunday night—beneath a starry sky, beside thousands of people unified by Beach Boys music and somewhere between “The Warmth of the Sun” and “God Only Knows”—I realized it.

Best. Summer. Ever.

No wait, upon further reflection, the second best. The best, of course, was 1972, the year I fell in love with She Who Stopped by My House on Her 10-Speed While I Was Taking Photos of the Moon.

In fact, the two of us were at that concert to mark 49 years of marriage, the Beach Boys capping an unusual doubleheader celebration that had begun the previous night with us seeing the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s presentation of Jane Eyre at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre in Ashland. (No slight to Jane, but she wasn’t as fun, fun, fun as the Beach Boys.)

If the summer of 1972 was a single flip-top snap of a new relationship that still hasn’t lost its fizz, the summer of 2024 has been wave after wave of wonder. No single blockbuster moment like the night the girl up the street swung by on her bike, but a string of etched-in-my-mind snapshots.

Among them: On anchor at Fern Ridge Lake, sails furled, a long-planned-but-only-now-executed salmon BBQ with our older son’s in-laws, Wally and Neda Anderson. After fielding a grounder at first base, our youngest grandson, 10-year-old McCoy, beating the batter to the bag with a full-out dive. And, at mystical Tokatee Golf Club, breaking 90 (from the white tees) on a day when Cade, our oldest grandson, shot a lifetime-best 78 (from the blues).

FOR ME, SUMMER has always been the most evocative of the four seasons. I smell sun block, taste a fresh-from-the-vine tomato or hear “Surfer Girl,” and I’m 12 again.

That’s the age I was when I attended my first Beach Boys concert at Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum (then called “O.S.U. Coliseum”) in 1966. My ticket cost $2.50. This year I splurged for our anniversary—$144.50 for each of our second-row seats. (Anniversaries are great ways to justify big expenditures; I just tell myself “It’s cheaper than a trip to Hawaii.”)

But it wasn’t just the memories that made my summer, it was the mindset change. Those of you who’ve been with Heart, Humor & Hope from its start in January might remember my angsty column about my struggle to ease into retirement.