Midsummer

I don't remember liking summer all that much in the past. Maybe I liked it when I was a little kid, but I have very few clear memories of it. I'm someone who has never had much tolerance for sun exposure and those fun outdoor activities involving the water involved serious sunburn for me. I grew up at a time when there was no such thing as sunscreen. When I was in my teens I remember summer as a time of feeling stressed about looking fat in a swimsuit and my mom fussing at me not to stay out in the sun too long.

But one happy memory of summer has to do with the time I spent in two small towns in Iowa called Winterset and Indianola. I had family living there including a cousin close to my age. My sister and I would spend weeks at a time in one or the other of those two towns every summer. We had the run of the town on bicycles. It was a fascinating change for me to go from the suburbs of a good size city - Kansas City, to a town of fewer than 5,000 residents.

I've gone back to Winterset for vacation the last three years. My present job tends to be stressful and omnipresent and being able to go away on vacation has become very important to me. The town hasn't changed too much in appearance since I spent my summers there. It has a few more houses and maybe a few more people and some businesses whose products and services didn't even exist when I was a kid, but really, it's about the same.

If you ever read The Bridges of Madison County, Winterset is the town where that story takes place. It's also the birthplace of John Wayne. The small victorian cottage where he was born has been restored and it's a national historic site. The town has some beautifully preserved/ restored victorian residential architecture, a nice swimming pool and a downtown square that is mostly occupied. There are still a couple of stores there that were in business when I was a kid. The city government and business community have been smart about promoting the town as a tourist spot for readers of the novel and John Wayne fans.

Walking or cycling around Winterset or being at my aunt and uncle's home in Indianola are some of the most evocative experiences of my adult life. When I'm there I remember with crystal clarity what I felt like the summer of my eighteenth birthday - just out of high school, waiting for life to start happening. I remember the music that played on the radio when my cousin and sister and I sat out on the deck late at night talking and watching cars go by on the highway. We waited every night for my cousin's boyfriend to ride his motorcycle out highway 92 past her house listening to Alice Cooper sing "School's Out" and Derek and the Dominoes playing "Layla." I was not a carefree child or adolescent, so I won't tell you that those summers were idyllic, but the memory of them stays with me.

I made my reservation yesterday for a week-long stay in Winterset later this summer. I'll post some pictures and write more about it when I get there.