Question:
To many Americans, Memorial Day weekend is the signal that summer has begun. Swimming pools open and the "summer lifestyle" begins. Other than the last day of school, what signals to you that summer has begun? Do you have a special "start of summer" ritual?
Replies:
Barbara Passero - BELMONT, MA
My memories are often tied to scents. Summer starts for me when the sweet smelling peonies bloom. I'm from Mayfield Hts., OH, 14 miles east of Cleveland. When I grew up there in the 1950s, the town was a quiet suburb of small houses on short streets that came off Mayfield Rd. My mother had a green thumb and loved flower gardening. She planned her garden so that each week in the spring, new flowers bloomed: crocuses, hyacinth, daffodils, tulips, etc. Then in early June, the peonies, irises, and climbing roses bloomed. The peonies had big buds that opened over the space of a few days, and the huge blooms were white with red stripes or streaks and pink and white. The scent of early summer is unforgettable even fifty years later. In the mid-1950s, development devastated my quiet town and the beautiful fields, wetlands, and woods that we used to play in. In 1959, my family moved to a newly built house about a half-mile away from where we lived. My mother started to plant flowers, but that yard never equaled the first one, which had the benefit of exchanging plants with neighbors and soil enriched over time. But my mother's special peonies and climbing roses grew well in the new yard and continued to be a big part of my early summer memories. I attended college at Hiram College in tiny Hiram, OH, over 40 years ago, but I still remember the wonder of the big, beautiful and sweet smelling peonies that bloomed right before we left school for summer vacation.
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