Hot summer, and watermelon

This summer has started out hot.  Recently we have been trying to cool down with watermelon. This brings back memories of hot summers, front porches and screened back porches.  My maternal grandparents, who I called Nana and Dan, lived on the 900 block of Graydon Ave. in the Ghent section of Norfolk Va.  My parents and my brother and I lived with them along with my great grandmother, Gram, until I was 8 years old.

 My grandfather, who I called Dan, was a banker of the old school.  He worked out of the Sea Board Citizens Bank in Berkley Va..  He took it upon himself after the depression to help the farmers that borrowed from the bank to be able to make their loans.  He would advise them about their crops and try in any way to help them to be able to pay off their loans.  These farmers would be so grateful that they would on occasion send home with him crates of strawberries, peaches, or watermelons and gifts of their produce.

Some of the best memories of that time revolved around the long slow days of summer.  After dinner at night we would go out and sit on the front porch in a glider or in one of their medal out door chairs.  There was a magnolia tree in the field next to the front porch and the scent of it's blooms perfumed the air.  A mocking bird's song would be music to our ears.  A lot of the neighbors would take walks up and down the street and often stopped by to visit.  The children would eagerly wait for the ice cream man's truck to come by.  As the children came out after dinner they often chased after lighting bugs to fill jars with their twinkly lights. Or they would organize games of red rover, snake in the gutter,or hide and seek.  Sometimes we would take blankets and lay down on our backs and look at the night sky with all the twinkling lights.  Looking for the milky way or the big dipper, guessing about the man in the moon.


Some times on very hot days when the watermelons were the ripest my grandfather would come home with a big watermelon and that evening we would cut it in chunks and sit outside on the back porch and eat the cold fruit. Later we learned to see who could spit the seeds the furthest.

Fifty, sixty years later we still have ties to these neighbors.  My best friend and my Mother's still live on Graydon Ave.  Most of the people have moved on or died but the ones that mean the most still live in our hearts.