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The Girls of Summer

This sweet photo is my second mother (on the right) with a friend.  The friend is the mother of another high school chum of mine.  I bet those staring young men in the background were servicemen from nearby Otis Air Force Base as the picture is dated during the war, “1942, Cape Cod”.

Where the girls stand is familiar to me as I spent many a youthful summer in this very enclave.  Lucky me to have received invitation after invitation to summer on Cape Cod with my best friend and her family.  I thank my second mother for that opportunity because it was her kind generosity that gave me some of the happiest moments of my childhood and youth.

Our Cape Cod days were spent on the beach swimming and playing cards with friends from other parts of our state.  We were young enough to not yet have to worry about working at summer jobs but old enough to be given the freedom we needed to grow in new and exhilarating ways.  Of course, my best friend’s mother kept a watchful eye on us but we were able to test the waters of innocent romance while still grounded in family life.  It was the best of times and is the reason why each one of the summers I spent on Cape Cod still has a golden halo around it.

Lucky also to have a mother who knew how important vacation clothes were and before I left home, my suitcase was filled with swimsuits and matching cover-ups, shorts, pretty sundresses, and fanciful pajama sets.  Each item was carefully washed, ironed within an inch of its life, and neatly packed next to coordinating yarn ribbons, headbands, plastic barrettes, and bottles of Ten-O-Six, Coppertone, and Noxema.  All items mingling with navy blue Ked’s (Mom’s idea of Cape Cod nautical), leather sandals, and rubber flip flops.

Also packed were paperback books from our school’s summer reading list and the 1950’s romance novels we found reissued with exciting new covers at our hometown drugstore.  And nestled in my suitcase was also the all-important Back-To-School Seventeen Magazine, which was always the August edition and not September.

We poured over Seventeen on our scratchy old beach blanket, the sun beating down on the backs of our legs, a transistor radio squawking out the Top 40 Hits.  Page after glossy page showed us exactly how we wanted to look going back to school and what we wanted to bring with us too.  Everything from bright psychedelic notebooks and pens to pop art nylon half slips to go under tartan fall skirts.  Lists were hastily scribbled with new lip gloss colors scented with fruit flavors, colorful knee socks, and small cognac-colored handbags on gold chains.  We wanted it all…

Our dreams of fall is what actually got us off the beach in the end.  The Girls of Summer knew they would have to go back to school and leave behind the sea, the sun, and the new friends.  But we always took something with us…a photograph of a budding summer love in cut-off jeans with windswept hair, a smooth worn seashell given for remembrance, or the journals we kept which unabashedly highlighted all our fickle ways.

The snapshot above captures it so well – the smiles, the lipstick, the gazing boys…the cute clothes.  The Girls of Summer.

 

11 Comments

  • Margaret Elmendorp

    I can smell your suitcase. Freshly washed (or new) clothes, 10-0-six and Noxema! Any teens survival kit! Right back to the early 70’s for me in South Australia!

  • Ann

    Such lovely memories…and what a pleasure to read your post. Several things struck me: Your other mother bears a resemblance to my mother and is urging me to pull out old photos and reminisce. No Cape Cod for me…but my dear high school friend’s grandmother had a cottage at a large lake. Staying there, walking in our flip flops to get pizza slices and look for boys, and yes! The Seventeen August issue. SO thick, such a treat…picking out our Bass Weejuns for the school year. Our local large department store always picked one senior girl from each high school to be a “teen representative” and be in a back to school fashion show held in a large venue in our town – wearing clothes from the Seventeen back to school issue. I was beyond thrilled to be picked for my school, and dreamed of wearing those clothes – 1972, Hurricane Agnes rolled in, and everything was cancelled due to flood damage. But…those memories of getting that THICK magazine in the mail still says “fall is coming” to me !

  • Beth M.

    I had one lucky summer like this, too, and “golden halo” is the perfect description for those memories. I love how your entries take me back to such special, wonderful times that I often forget about! Thank you, Donna, for another great post.

    • Karen

      Oh thank you for the beautiful time machine that takes us right back to that golden halo time, Donna. This is a lovely remembrance of every teenage girls perfect summer. Thank you so much for sharing this and it’s so needed to think back on these things and reflect on them as we move into this seemingly endless challenge in our history. Love this!!!

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