"I want to thank you for giving me the most wonderful summer of my life. It was so heavenly, you meant the world to me. And anyone could see that I was so in love."Beautiful song. But it's not one that you can buy an MP3 for, it appears. I remember Dic Youngs on KIOA (Des Moines) saying he used to be neighbors with Robin Ward, lived across the street from him wherever he lived at the time. So he'd play it and it made it extra sentimental.
I'm a big romantic at heart, all that teenage weirdness about falling in love and being sentimental about it. Little keepsakes. A broken heart when we have to part.
One time my family went down by Branson and stayed at a resort and there was a girl about my age. She and I walked up the path, up a hill, and I believe we sat there for a while. I have one isolated souvenir of this event, which is a tiny article I wrote about her in a newspaper in 1971. I just looked it up because I didn't remember her name.
Incredibly the little article tells the name of the resort that her parents ran, her first and last name, and her brother's name. But it doesn't tell about us walking up the path on that rainy day. I believe I took home a baby food jar full of the rain water. (I believe I did? -- I know I did, LOL, but it's long gone, unless it's in my parents' basement somewhere after all these years. What would a 40 year old jar of water be like?)
The year was 1968 or '69 when this happened. Then the newspaper article in '71. Then after high school I hitchhiked down to the area, not to see her, but I was just passing through with a hitchhiking friend. But I couldn't resist, and I don't remember what happened exactly. It seems like I saw her at a restaurant with an open front, but I really don't remember. Maybe she was with some guy on a motorcycle. It doesn't seem like she knew me or cared to know me. My imagination's failing me at this point.
Anyway, I've always loved that song, "Wonderful Summer," not because of this girl.
But thinking about it -- and maybe Robin Ward knew this -- the lesson about such things is this: Never go back! Ever!
