One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is “The Summer of George” episode where George decides to spend the whole summer doing whatever HE wants to do! What a great idea, right?
I think the last Summer of David was in 1975, when I was 13. My buddies and I would ride all over St. Simons Island doing whatever we wanted. We loved to go to the Casino (not the Emerald Princess), where we could swim in the giant pool with the high dive board, try to impress girls with our skating ability at the skating rink, and bowl at the bowling alley. It only cost fifty cents to swim and maybe a dollar to rent a pair of skates for the whole afternoon. If Richard Adams was working at the bowling alley we could bowl for FREE! Actually, not quite free. Part of Richard’s job responsibilities included sweeping the lanes, taking out the trash, returning bowling balls to the racks etc. In exchange for doing Richard’s “side work,” my buddies and I didn’t have to pay to bowl. It was a win-win for us!
We loved to ride to the pier and see what the folks had caught in their buckets. Of course, the baseball park always had a good pick-up game going, which is why you needed to keep your baseball glove on your handlebars at all times, just in case. I guess nowadays you need to keep your pickleball racquet in your car at all times!
It was fun to ride on the beach and look at the older girls in bikinis. Massengale Beach was where all the high school kids hung out, so you could listen to the music on the dozens of radios all tuned to WAPE on AM 95 out of Jacksonville. Every half hour WAPE would play the sound of an ape to let you know what time it was. No need for iPhone back then! When you heard “AH-EEE-AHHHH” you knew it was time to turn over on your towel.
Unfortunately, Summer of ’75 was also the last time I swam out to the sandbars that were always about 100 yards offshore. As a member of the Golden Isles Swim Team Boys 13-14 Freestyle Relay Team, I swam out to the sandbars all the time. I’d heard stories of legendary locals like Jimmy Bankston, who used to swim to Jekyll from the St. Simons beach, and I looked forward to the day when I might attempt such a feat. But that year, one Saturday in late June, my buddies and I went to the matinee movie at The Lanier Theatre. Dun dun….dun dun….dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn! After THAT movie, we never swam out to the sandbars again.
Make Summer 2022 on SSI the Summer of (your name)!
