Goodbye, swim club!

Meelyn, Aisling and I stayed at the pool for an unprecedented five hours today and I am now more suntanned than anybody you know. No, more suntanned than her. There is no use in arguing about this. I am a lovely, goldy-brown color achieved through determined application of SPF 30 lotion (PABA free) and Hawaiian Tropics SPF 4 oil for the late afternoons when the oldies station is on. The smell of coconuts and the sound of Paul, Linda and the rest of the Wings singing "Band on the Run" takes me back to the summer before my seventh grade year in such a profound way, I can almost open my eyes and see White Estates pool and my friend Lisa baking on the towel next to mine.

My towel, if you'll believe it, bore the legend, interspersed with many brightly-colored flowers, "Make Love, Not War." How a 12-year-old from a staunchly Republican family wound up with such a beach towel, I don't know. But it was 1974 and that's just how things were, I guess.

Anyway.

I had a lovely time, reading and reading and getting in and out of the pool as my body temperature dictated and eating my turkey sandwich from Subway. It was glorious. The oldies station played every song I'd ever hoped to hear that day, and I sang along under my breath, after furtively looking around to see if anyone was in hearing distance.

I missed Kieren and Dayden with a lump in my throat, once or twice.

As we packed up the floats and the towels and the coolers and our swim bags, one last song for the summer came on over the loudspeakers.

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Oh, won't you stay just a little bit longer

Please, please, please, please tell me that you want to

Now, your mommy don't mind

And your mommy don't mind

If we have another dance, just one more

Say you will

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You think there weren't some tears in my eyes at leaving this happy place?

"Are you crying?" Aisiling asked curiously.

"It's nothing," I replied. "Just my allergies."

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Won't you stay just a little bit longer

Come on and say you will....