The Summer of Ginny

For some reason summers have always been the most memorable season for me.  I can’t really recall anything, other than Christmas, that happened in the cold months of my youth…but summers are forever etched in my memory. 

When I was a little girl I looked forward to summer because we visited my grandparents for two weeks.  An only child, my summers were spent there with my cousin, Theresa, exploring the orchard and playing in our grandmothers wash house in the hot Kentucky sun.  Old dishes became our banquet, old curtains our ball gowns and we caught lightening bugs in a jar in the cool, dark evenings.    

It was summer when I “became a woman”; a disquieting female event that interrupted a perfectly good baseball game with the neighborhood boys.  The summer I was fourteen I met a special boy, and that meeting changed my summers forever.  Later, summers were spent taking our three children to their grandmother’s cabin at the lake, on picnics and vacations.   

Before we knew it the kids were gone, and it was a special summer when we bought our own place at the lake; kayaking and beachcombing quickly became my new summer favorites.  That first season was spent exploring the area, looking for a golf cart and meeting new people.   What a great summer…

Now we are in a different season of our lives, but summer is still my favorite. This summer is special because I’ve officially declared it the Summer of Ginny.

The first car we bought when we got married was a VW Beetle.  It had a crank open sun roof, just enough power to get over a hill (if it wasn’t too high) and a heater that guaranteed snow in the floor boards until at least the middle of May.  It was my first experience with a stick shift.  I remember once parking on a hill; I ended up waiting in the car for over an hour until the person parked in front of me left so I could pull forward out of the parking space.   I hadn’t mastered backing up…that came much later after tears and nail biting and embarrassment had worked their magic.  I loved that car.

Years later I found a VW Beetle classic convertible and I bought it.  I meticulously restored it, had it painted fire engine red and kept it in tip top shape.   I drove it two summers before my husband’s misgivings about the car won out.  While I saw a beautiful, red convertible my husband saw a four wheeled bomb.  Every time I left the drive way he held his breath until I returned, and he never wanted me to drive it on the highway.   Eventually his distress outweighed my enjoyment and I sold it.

For several years I drove a Sebring convertible, another favorite.  A few summers ago I sold that and, like a good grown up, drove a “sensible” car for three or four years.  My Chevrolet Impala was the automotive equivalent of sensible shoes and cotton underwear.  They have their place in the landscape of your life, but too much can change who you are. 

As this summer approached we discussed my continued longing for a convertible; when my husband discovered this is the last year they’d be producing the VW Beetle convertible he alerted me to that fact. As I continued to try to argue myself out of such an impractical purchase he was looking on line at the dwindling supply of the little cars.   Eventually he put things into perspective for me when he said, “It’s your decision, but life is short…buy the shoes”.   The man is a great communicator.   

This is the summer I’m enjoying my new white VW Beetle convertible with the black top.  You must be an optimist to buy a convertible and live in Ohio, but it fits me to a “T”, and it puts a kind of automotive parentheses around my adult life.  I’ve named the car Ginny…short for Generic.   Our dog Maddie often rides along, curled trustingly in the passenger seat as we zip along, trailing oldies music in the summer sunshine. 

                                                Ginny and Maddie and Me….Life is Good