…Love, love is the answer, whoo-hoo
And that's all right
So don't you give up now, whoo-hoo
It's so easy to find
Just look to your soul (Look to your soul)
And open your mind
Crystal blue persuasion…
It was 1969. I was ten and having the time of my life, because my sister was a lifeguard and she often let me tag along with her to work. Those days were spent swimming (of course) and then resting in the basket area (because I had privileges) watching old Shirley Temple movies.
Crystal Blue Persuasion was the song of the summer. We sang along to it on the way to the pool and on the way home, and any time I hear it now, I'm ten, once again, riding shotgun in Brenda's VW bug.
I can smell the chlorine, feel the cool of the breeze in the shade of the basket room, hear the splashes and the chatter coming from the pool.
It's 1969, I'm ten, ignorant and innocent, and all is right with my world.
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It drifted out to me from the winery bistro kitchen's radio…Black Land Farmer, sung by Frankie Miller. Although it had been years since I heard it, with the first whistle I was swept out of that restaurant to Garner State Park, two-stepping around a rock pavilion with a gangly teenage boy under a star-studded night sky.
It's just a twangy country song, with a steady slow beat, but from the first time I heard it blasting out of that old juke box full of 45s, it became my Garner theme song.
Every summer from sixth grade to my senior year of high school – except one when the Frio River flooded and we had to pack up and leave in the middle of the night – I spent at least a week in that pavilion under the stars, caught up in innocent summer romances.
I tried to go back with my kids years ago, but it wasn't the same. It never is, is it?
The Frio River and the towering Cypress trees were still beautiful, and the kids got to climb the same trails to the same little caves I loved to explore, but the quiet dirt roads had been asphalted and the dances were so crowded that you could barely breathe, much less spin around the dance floor.
I took a photo of the pavilion before we left the park, just so I'd have an image of that great CCC stonework.
But my kids had fun, anyway. They didn't know what they were missing, of course. I'm just grateful that, with the first whistle of Black Land Farmer, I can go back to my Garner.
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The Beach Boys were my favorite band when I was five. I already had a crush on Dennis Wilson. (Maybe that's why I always wanted to play the drums!)
I would sit in a chair near our console stereo and listen to this whole album, over and over and over.
Once I got my driver's license, I spent every free minute in Galveston, soaking up the sun. The Beach Boys were still my favorite soundtrack in those sandy summer days. And talk about dreams come true…in May of 1975 I finally heard them in person.
Their songs, any and all of them, still make me want to jump in my car and head for the beach…
So tell me, what songs take you back to summer?
This is a Generation Fabulous Blog Hop. Click on the links below to see what songs say summer to others.
http://www.linkytools.com/thumbnail_linky_include.aspx?id=207880
Long Hollow 
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