Summer was always a magical time for me growing up. Why? Because of books.


Most of my summer memories revolve around books.


Loading up the back of my dad’s car with my Trixie Belden collection because what if I ran out of things to read.


Going to the library at my elementary school, the one morning a week it was open. The school was one of those open concept ones from the 1960s, you know, and the library was the hub. All the classrooms were dark. The building was cool and quiet, and I pretty much had the place to myself. I’d walk out every week with armloads of books. Honestly, I don’t know how many times I went. Maybe it was only once, but the memory is strong. I can smell it, even now, nearly fifty years later.


Learning that the library would MAIL books to you. I remember getting a book about The Beatles, and it was mailed in one of those padded envelopes that sheds everywhere. 


Picking out books in the five and dime, my first Harlequins, usually chosen because of the horses on the cover. 


Most of my summer memories revolve around not just one book, but stacks of them. I was always happy to have the assurance that I’d have plenty to read. I don’t read real books very often now, but my Kindle is loaded with books. Now…to take the time to read them!

Yesterday I went on a winery trip with some of my teacher friends. We all used to teach together at some point, and I don’t remember how the winery trips started. But we’ve been doing them for five or six years now. We missed last year, of course, and we missed another year in there because we just couldn’t make our schedules work. We also meet for each birthday (again, we missed last year, except for Mary B.)


What’s most interesting about our group is the age gap. The oldest is 74, the youngest is 37. Three of us are retired (and all named Mary!) and the youngest of course is still teaching. Susan, the youngest, was born the year I graduated high school so it’s really three generations. The three who are retired have been retired less than ten years. 


We hadn’t all gotten together since about three days before everything shut down, when we celebrated Mary B’s birthday. But after a few minutes, it was like we’d never been apart. 


We went to the first winery in Johnson City, Texas, where we bonded with the server, also named Mary, and teased Susan we were going to swap her for a new Mary. We laughed and cried and moved to the next winery, where we enjoyed a sangria slushy and talked and looked at pictures of kids and grandkids and dogs. Talked about boyfriends and weed and health and online school.


We had brought snacks, but weren’t allowed to consume them there, so we drove into Fredericksburg to the park and had a picnic. Talked about principals and memories, traveling and plants, exchanged birthday presents.


We were going to go to one more winery, but it was already nearly four o’clock, so we headed home. When we parted, we gave each other extra hugs, because even though we plan to see each other next month, well, we said that last year, and it didn’t happen.


We spent about seven hours together and it went by in a blink. I am still on a high from the time spent with such good friends.