NEW_SUMMER_AUDIO_ESSAY_Mixdown_1_0.mp3

I miss it already. Do you?  Summer provides a kind of freedom that we can only dream about in Fall and Winter: sleeveless, coatless walks along the Charles, outdoor dining on the Boston harbor, picnics in Franklin Park, fishing on the Spigot River in Lawrence, pickup basketball games everywhere. California Dreaming.

And it’s the SOUNDS of summer that  many of us hold on to like an old blanket long after the dog days have passed: The chorus of crickets in the blackness of night, kids at play,  the pounding of the surf from Cranes Beach to Revere to Hull to Truro to Naragansett; the familiar theme from an ice cream truck, like a pied piper luring kids and their parents to the truck counter’s edge.  And then there are the smells of summer:  The sidewalk after a torrential rain, the scent of Memphis ribs in Boston and Italian sausages on a hot grill, fragrant Lilacs and roses in the garden.