Dilladoop

The summers of my jovial childhood can be boiled down to reenacting Power Rangers, bike-riding, and -between the slip n' slides, backyard pools, swimming lessons, and jumping on the neighbor's tramp with the sprinkler underneath - spending 70% of the day in my dilladoop. Dilladoop, by the way, is the term my best friend growing up designated for "swimming suit".  I still use the term fifteen years later so I guess you could say that it stuck.

Today I had a kickback to those days. I got dressed in my swimsuit and pedaled over to the recreation center only to find it was closed for maintenance. I tried another pool, which was also closed, so I pedaled home.There wasn't a single soul out on the street.  It made me miss those days when the boys in the neighborhood would play street hockey with the occasional shout of, "CAR!" which was really shorthand for, "Get out of the road before we get smushed by that oncoming vehicle." Sometimes, if it was Brother Cottam driving a semi, everyone would pump their fisted hands hoping to get a honk in return. 

I parked my bike in the garage and started checking off items on the To-Do list: laundry, vacuum, dust. 

Still wearing my dilladoop hours later, I stepped outside to shake the dust cloth when a sly smile crept from the left corner of my mouth. Deserted street. Summer day. Nostalgic overload.  I hustled over to the hose, screwed on the sprinkler head, placed it adjacent to the cherry tree stump, cranked the water to full blast, and ran around in the droplets like I was seven again.  The coldness of the water shortened my breath but didn't stop me from cartwheeling in and out or blocking the water flow with my foot and then shrieking again when I let the sprinkler free. Loose grass stuck to my wet feet and kept on me until dried. The hose sputtered whenever it got kinked and released. Shadows of flying birds dove across the lawn. I was chuckling and dripping wet when I galloped to the driveway because the only thing better than running through the sprinklers is lying on the warm pavement after. It smelled just like it always has and does and always will: petrichor.  I just love the smell of petrichor.

No matter how old or young you are, the body print produced while doing this is never an accurate impression of the maker. This particular body print had a small head, twig arms, and was wearing a skirt. I do not match that description unless my mirror has been lying to me. I can't help but make the connection that my childhood memories are a body print of the actual events:  I created those memories just as I created the body print, and perhaps my memories are just as misleading as those prints.

Like Power Rangers.  I watch TV these days and think, "Television was so much better when I was a kid.  The quality has really gone down since then." So today I revisited my favorite show growing up fully expecting Power Rangers to live up to my memory of Emmy-worthy entertainment.  Let's see...how can I put this gently....

It was bad.  

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed every minute of it.  The overly dorky punk kids who always try to cause problems, the V-neck tank tops, the color-coded crayon wardrobe, the horrible "monsters" Rita comes up with that are in the most unconvincing costumes, and I haven't quite figured out how to put into words exactly what is going on with the special effects. I think it's a cross between a sneezing lightning bolt and a Superhero comic strip with an onomatopoeia zooming around.  Oh how I miss the '90s.  I wouldn't say memories fade, but we tend to paint over the ugly parts, cling to the good parts, and sell the whole thing for more than it was worth. Or at least I do, anyway. But I'll argue til the day I die that my memory package has been properly appraised and the value thereof and time have a positive relationship, not a depreciating negative relationship.

And if you just want to jump to the best part, the classic morphing part, click here.

So here's a blogging toast to the summers of our youth.  Here's to neighborhoods, catching bugs, playing house, naming bikes, pretending to be older than we were, making clubs and secret handshakes, the plots of land that used to be, the sprinklers, Saturday morning cartoons, night games, library books written in rhyme, and dreaming about running away to live like the Boxcar children. May our nostalgic memories always live in our minds as the way summers should be and may we do our best to provide that for future generations. Every kid deserves a childhood like mine.

Now if you would excuse me, I need to go do somersaults down the hall.