Last summer of the century is one for the record books

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

I didn't hear the song a single time this summer, but it played in my head anyway, buzzing around like a pesky bee: "Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer." Nat King Cole's smooth-as-honey voice trailing me all the way through June, July and August.

Most years summer never lives up to this song. This year the song didn't have a prayer of living up to summer.

It's been three months of hazy and definitely crazy (the Peter Blute saga guaranteed this) bliss. And if lazy never kicked in, that's because we don't do lazy in this part of the world. We buy hammocks and big wicker armchairs with fat, flowery pillows, not for the way they feel but for the way they look, like something out of Martha Stewart or Southern Living. But we do not sit or, heaven forbid, lie down ever, unless our work is done.

And since our work is never done (there is always work to be done, don't you know?), our hammocks are worn out by the weather, not by use.

That aside, this summer, which we are about to wrap up and pack away and assign to memory and history, was one long perfect day at the beach, an intermission from rain and storm and cold and even wind. And though it was a terrible summer for farmers and gardeners, who had to work double-time to salvage half their crop, for the rest of us, selfish as it sounds, waking up to the birds singing and the sun shining was not a bad way start each day.

The Red Sox were exceptional this summer, too. They kept us entertained with the crack of the bats, the crowd's roar, the steady drone of the play-by-play, the best sounds of summer, right up there with the ice-cream man's bell and the clink of ice in a glass and children playing under an open window. We had it all: the sun, the Sox, heat and the promise of more heat day after day. Light from early morning straight into night. We dozed off to the crickets' hum, and slept with the windows open.

"Roll out those lazy, hazy crazy days of summer. You wish that summer could always be here." That's what I wish. This weekend isn't exactly the death knell for summer. It's nothing so final. But it is a reminder, like the lights flashing in a theater, that the show (a drama; no frivolity is allowed in the fall) is about to start. Everything will seem to continue, just as it is, for a little while longer. People will still sit outside after work, but not for as long. They'll still sip their gin and tonics, but they won't taste as good. They'll cut their lawns and garden, but not with as much enthusiasm.

The ice-cream man will still ring his bell, but only after school. And the kids and the Sox will continue to play all the way into fall. But they'll both sound a little different now, a little farther away, like people walking down a hall whose voices you hear but whose words gradually fade.

That's what happens. Summer fades. The earth shifts and we shift too, from low gear to overdrive. But it's not just summer walking down the hall, leaving us. We leave it too. We turn our backs on it even as it lingers. We're the ones who hurry away. Our clothes get serious. Our calendars get crowded. The lawn furniture gets put away, along with the plastic glasses, along with our summer selves. Good-bye to spur-of-the-moment trips to the movies, staying up late to watch a video, taking a walk at dusk because it doesn't feel late - because it never feels late when the air is warm and soft.

Goodbye to ice-cream cones for lunch and walking barefoot and reading for pleasure and not bothering with dinner or cleaning the house because there's always pizza and the house will be there tomorrow.

Now tomorrow looms. It's there in the shadows. You can feel it in the early morning chill. You can smell it in the clean, crisp air. You can even see it in wool sweaters and leather shoes and in the winter coats waiting to weigh us down.

The chill in the air is invigorating and awakens something within us, but it buries something, too. It makes us want to hurry these last days. It makes us want to rush summer out of our lives, like a houseguest who has stayed too long.

The guest will be gone soon enough. These are still the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. This is still the summer of '99, the final days in the final year of a century, perfect days we will look back upon with longing. We need to savor these days, not hurry them along, so that our longing isn't tinged with regret.