Summertime is Here

And the radio keeps playing

Back in the summer days of late high school, and even within my first years of college, my Bessemer friends and I would do what we could with the limited resources we had. Sometimes, we could afford to go to the movies, especially on Monday or Tuesday, which were $1.50 nights at the Cobb chain of theaters around the Birmingham area. We saw some bad movies (The Hollywood Knights, starring Tony Danza, comes to mind), but every now and then, something like The Summer of ’42 would creep in and move us, change us.

Make us understand that life wasn’t simple — a concept we were only beginning to realize and see within us.

Sometimes we could sneak into a club on Morris Avenue, the barely remembered home of Underground Birmingham. The Crazy Horse, so often advertised on WSGN, had a policy of looking the other way, though you could never predict just when they might decide that the Beverage Control Board was more important than serving 17 year-olds.

If all else failed, though, we weren’t daunted. It might be only two of us among our group — Fred, Jim, Jimbo, Jane, Laura, Don, Kent, Sarah, Billy — but in whatever iteration or configuration, we’d decide to drive, to ride around for as long as we could, chipping in for gas and if we were lucky, finding a place that would sell us a six-pack.

Those places were legion and loom in my mind now as locations that had been defying common sense and the law for generations, at least in some form.

I used to wonder why certain places were named “Package Stores” and others, Taverns. My dad tried to explain how such places attracted a kind of clientele that was suspicious, unsavory — not “our kind of people.” So my friends and I never tried such joints, or maybe some of us did venture into The Alabama Owl, but not me. It still stands in north Bessemer, and on trips back there, I’ve often wondered if I should go.

What slipped past my father and surely other father’s eyes was that we could find our cravings in the various and sundry places with names like Quik Mart. Utotem, and Stop and Shop. So many of these places to choose from, and the worst they’d do when we’d bring our Bud or Miller or Schiltz cans to the counter was to ask for ID. In that case, we’d leave the beer there, walk back out, and head to the next chance.

One of our favorites was The Ice House, between Carolina and Arlington Avenues, down on 15th Street. I can’t remember a time when they turned us down, and why we didn’t always go there was only because it was kind of a safety joint that we didn’t want to overuse and abuse.

I’ve surely had greater joys, profound loves, but the happiness and excitement when I, or one of my friends, scored some Miller ponies, or even Bud Tall Boys, were uncontainable and infectuous. We never drank to distraction, and could never afford to buy more than one six-pack. I’m not saying we were actually responsible, just limited.

Mainly, though, what we did was listen to the radio, singing, dismissing, and sometimes even singing to what we dismissed. These summers — 1972–7 — were full of tunes to invigorate, dismay, enlighten, discourage, and fill us with that romantic sense that who we were right then wasn’t for always, even those parts of us that we liked.

Of course we’d talk and laugh as we meandered out into the countryside past McCalla and McAdory, through old Jonesboro or out the Montevallo road. Since Alabama is in the Central Time Zone, it would get fully dark by 8:00, and so whatever else we did as we rode had some sense of the cover of darkness.

Mainly, though, what we did was listen to the radio, singing, dismissing, and sometimes even singing to what we dismissed. These summers — 1972–7 — were full of tunes to invigorate, dismay, enlighten, discourage, and fill us with that romantic sense that who we were right then wasn’t for always, even those parts of us that we liked.

We had three rock and roll AM stations, though after sundown, one of these — WVOK — signed off. Mainly it was WSGN, and on occasion, a soul station like WENN. Here are songs from that time floating through my mind as I write:

“(If I Could) Turn Back the Hands of Time,” by Tyrone Davis

“Psychedelic Shack,” by The Temptations

“Radar Love,” by Golden Earring

“Brandy,” by Looking Glass

“Bette Davis Eyes,” by Kim Carnes

“Jet,” by Paul McCartney and Wings

“When Will I See You Again,” by the Three Degrees

I could go on and on and on.

At the end of such evenings, one of us had to be the last to be dropped off. Sometimes we’d sit at this last rider’s house, trying to keep from going in, ending these seemingly endless summer moments. What do two 16 or 17 year-olds say at the end of drives? Do they hug or kiss? Do they want more but refrain? I’ll leave that to my memories and your imagination.

When I was the driver and had the last few miles to myself, I’d crank the radio even louder, driving the Super Highway to Highway 150, and then a left at Fairfax. If I were lucky, “Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo” might come on. Right, I never “thought we’d lose that funky sound.”

One night in the summer of 1976, as I drove my favorite route alone, this song came on. Maybe by then I was on to FM, but I can’t remember that detail. I just remember the sound of War’s “Summertime.”

My time of year.

Those summers had to end, though maybe not really or at least not forever.

Summertime is stranger this summer than I can remember. My wife and I take drives a couple of times a week as the sun is setting, our dog Maxie in back. Sometimes during these evenings, I turn on “The 70’s on 7,” trying to catch the smoke of some distant fire. The other night, as we cruised through an older part of town — beerless I will add — “Summertime” appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t know it back then, but its beat, its suave and sultry rhythm now remind me of the Bossa Nova sound we grew to love back in the early 90’s. Late to the party, sure, but Getz and Jobim satisfy any time.

Especially in restless summer.

This story is part of Jessica Lee McMillan’s July challenge: https://readmedium.com/july-writing-challenge-c63c5d014c29.

I’d love your response, and appreciate even more any of you accepting the challenge of writing your own summer music stories.