Wonderful Summer

Thanks to honeywldcat for the editing on this. As a long ago failure in grammar her help was appreciated.

This story is my first submission to this site. Over the last few years I have enjoyed reading many stories from other authors. My fa-vourite author is JAKE RIVERS. He puts so much heart, soul, and research into his stories that a guy just can't help but like them. Jake has an invitational writing challenge every now and then, where he challenges other writers to write a story about some song he has chosen. Usually it is a country and western song. I enjoy the way people come up with ways of interpreting those songs and putting words down on paper to make a story out of the tunes.

Having said that, I was listening to an old CD the other day and a tune caught my attention. I remembered this song from when I was growing up, I'm dating myself), and the idea of this story just came to me. This is not a country song by any means, but the story I wrote is about that song.

Although this story is in no way anywhere near what Jake's standards are, I hope you will enjoy it.

*

Ten years in the future.

There is an old record called "Wonderful Summer" from 1963 that I am quite fond of. It's sung by a girl by the name of Robin Ward and the songwriter/producer was Perry Botkin. Robin was a session singer when she was asked to record this song. It was intended to be a demo for other artists to see if they liked it enough to record it themselves.

I don't know why, but it was released that way and even if Robin wasn't a headliner, the song actually sold more than a million copies. I guess the saying is she was a 'One Hit Wonder'.

Robin's voice is what first made me listen to that song. In my opinion, her voice was not suited for this song and her vocal range seemed to be forced, but maybe her unusual sounding voice is what first made me pay attention to this recording.

Like most tunes from that era, the studio work was very basic and the producers back then were just starting to get a handle on what this new rock and roll music was all about. The kids that were listening to this new rock and roll were the first generation that had some disposable spending power and were always looking for that new sound, or new star to spend their money on.

The producers seemed to be just recording anything and everything and playing around with their equipment to get a new sound, just to try and find that special artist to be the next wonder. Perry Botkin played with the sound on this record to make this an unusual sounding love song. I'm sure that most people when they hear this song will think that it is a pretty bad recording. Actually, I am one of them when it comes to how this song sounds, but the words are what kept me listening to this recording and over the years it became my favourite song.

If you are interested in hearing this song you can find this song by Googling for it, just type in, wonder-ful summer robin ward.

Why am I telling you about all this nonsense you ask?

It's because my granddaughter is here visiting with me today and she has brought along her fiancé, Harold. Her mother's house was being painted today and Abby, that's my granddaughter, wanted to get away from the fumes. Abby had dragged along her fiancée and they were doing some studying for a university course they were taking. Of course my daughter, Le-Ann, also had to get away and had come along with them.

Abby and Harold were using one of those new fangled electronic machines that seemed to be attached permanently to them. These new gadgets the kids had, sort of fascinated me, because I could still remember the first transistor radio and then all the rest of those electronic marvels that followed a few years later. As I got more mature, that's my word for older, I couldn't keep up with all that fast changing technology. It seemed that no sooner than you got set up with one system than it was already out-dated and you just had to have the next system that was available. It was a never ending cycle that I'm sure was designed to just suck our money out of our pockets.

My curiosity got the better of me and I just had to investigate when I saw Abby and Harold typing away with their thumbs on a miniscule pad and speaking what seemed like some foreign language into a small head mounted microphone that was wirelessly connected to their machines. Those little hand held boxes were projecting pictures onto the wall as they worked.

I could hear some sounds that were playing in her ears as she worked. Without thinking I commented, "That music sounds as if it is a distraction while you should be concentrating on your homework."

She replied, "I'm connected to my class at the university and doing my assignments with Harold's sup-port. The two of us are also communicating with two electronic friends, one in Japan and another in Ceylon and while we are doing that we are connected to this music site that lets us hear our favourite tunes in the background.

I was surprised and said, "You can do all that on that interactive mini sized, 3-D projecting apparatus? I added, "Man, you talk about being able to multi-task. I can hardy believe that these new palm sized devices are so advanced that a person could do all that at one time."

Because we had got on the topic of music, or should I say, I was wondering what she saw in this weird sounding music she was listening to, I asked her if I could listen for a while. She took off her head set and put it over my ears. I listened to the sounds that came out of the headset for a while.

I will admit that as I listened I couldn't make out hide or hair out of anything I heard.

Abby said to me, "What you are listening to is my favourite song."

I said, "Nothing that sounds like that should be called music!" I added, "I'm sure it was really made to call cats from ten miles away."

She surprisingly respected my opinion and said to me in return, "The stuff that you listen to on the radio has never made any sense to me either, so we are even on that count."

As we talked some more about music she asked, "What is your favourite song?"

I told her in a cheerful voice, "Without a doubt, my favourite song is 'Wonderful Summer' and it was sung by Robin Ward."

Of course she had never heard of it, so I went over to my old fashioned CD player and found my copy of it. Actually, it wasn't too hard to find because it was always on the top of the pile.

Just bringing it out again brought back some very strong and fond memories for me. I remember my late husband spending weeks converting all our old records, 8 tracks, cassettes and what not, to the CD's. When they came out with all those other formats after that, we stuck to our old CD's and never bought any other music.

Abby wanted me to play it for her, so I did. Harold also removed his head set to listen, too. When the song was finished I could tell the two of them were not too impressed with that song.

Abby asked me, "Why is this song so important to you, Grandma?"

I guess the reason she asked was because she thought it was just another poorly done, sappy love song with bad lyrics. After all, most people that heard the song felt that way and why should she be any different?

We went back to sit on the couch and I found myself thinking for a bit of my past life. Abby waited patiently for me to answer her.

When I finished my reminiscing I told her, "The summer that song was on the radio was the summer that I had met the love of my life, who just happened to be your Grandpa Bill." I continued that thought by saying, "Every line of that song meant something special to us, because the two of us lived every word of the song."

"Could you explain that to me, Grandma?" Abby asked me.

We were interrupted by my daughter joining us to see what we were doing. Abby looked at her mom and told her, "Grandma was just going to explain to me the story behind her favourite song called, 'Wonderful Summer'."

Lee-Ann said to Abby, "I remember when your Grandpa and Grandma used to play that song at least once a week. I must have heard them playing that old CD a million times when I was growing up." She added, "I still remember that tune, and I would also like to hear the story behind that song."

I them recited from memory, the first line of the song for them which was, "I want to thank you, for giving me. The words I want to thank you were something my late husband and I said to each other just about every day we were together. It was our way of fondly saying how much we loved each other. The for giving me part of that, was sort of open ended and meant it was our special way of letting the other one know how connected we were to them, now, and for the future. We would just say for giving me to each other, and the other one knew that they were appreciated."

I said, "The second line of that song was, the most wonderful summer, of my life. Those seven words for the first year were how Bill and I felt about each other for that first summer we knew each other." I continued that thought by saying, "But, as the years unfolded we found that line of the song also came to mean our whole life that we were together."

I had to add, "You could summarize the feelings we had for each other by saying our entire life together was a wonderful summer."

I went on to the third line of the song which was, "It was so heavenly," I told Abby, "Both Grandpa and I felt that we were blessed with how we felt about each other and heavenly was about the only word that could describe how we felt about our life together."

"You meant the world to me, is self explanatory," I said. "We were so connected to each other that just about anything else that was happening in the world was secondary to us."

I continued on by saying, "The next line was, and anyone could see, that I was so in love." I looked at Abby and Lee-Ann and told Lee-Ann, "I don't think I ever told you how I met your father."

I then told them, "Everyone we knew back then understood we were in love from that first day we met." I continued that thought by saying, "The next few lines of that song would explain everything that happened to make everyone realize how we felt about each other."

"I want to thank you, for giving me the most wonderful summer of my life."

"I never will forget that summer day we met.

You were so shy and yet, you stole may heart away."

"We strolled along the sand, walking hand in hand.

Then you kissed me, and I knew that I would love you, my whole life through."

I explained to them, "I met Bill, on the beach at a summer cottage my dad had rented for the summer. The very first day I was there, I was out exploring the beach when I met this really cute looking boy that appeared to be my age. We said hello to each other and I found out his dad had also rented a cottage two places over from ours. We spent the afternoon together, just exploring the beach and awkwardly talking. We both were so shy with each other, but when we both bent down and got on our knees to look at a clam shell, we found ourselves looking into each others eyes and we kissed. We never could explain why we kissed, but it just seemed to be what was needed to be done at that moment."

I then told them, "When my mother called me to come home, she took one look at me and knew I had changed as I told her about Bill. She told me a few years later that she knew right at that moment, that I had fallen in love."

I paused as I thought for a bit then said, "The very next day we met again on the beach and he had his brand new transistor radio with him. The very first song we heard when he turned it on was, 'Wonderful Summer'. The two of us were inseparable for the rest of that summer and we embraced that song as ours."

Abby told me, "That's such a romantic story, but Grandma, how did you go from that to getting married to Grandpa?"

I smiled as I told her, "She would have to wait for that explanation until I finished the story about the song." I then recited the rest of the song for them.

"I want to thank you, for giving me, the most wonderful summer, of my life.

And though it broke my heart, that day we had to part.

I'll always thank you, for giving me the most wonderful summer, of my life."

I explained to my audience, "We seemed like we were joined at the hip that summer and when we both had to go our separate ways to go back home to our different cities. We kept writing back and forth at least once a week."

Lee-Ann told Abby, "Back then, there was no e-mail or instant communication like now a days or any-thing like that, and phone calls to the next city cost a lot of money, so letters were the way people communi-cated back then."

I looked at Abby and told her, "We steadily wrote back and forth, with the odd phone call for three years of high school, and we managed to both go to the same university. We immediately reconnected there and after we graduated, we married and were together for twenty-six years and were blessed to have your mother as our child and everything in our life was just great."

I had to pause for a second then said, "That was until that fateful day of that car accident. That's when I lost the love of my life."

I told Abby, "Bill bravely hung on for a week after the accident, but we all knew in our hearts he wouldn't last much longer. A week after the accident he showed me how much he still cared about me by asking me to play that song one more time for him."

"I sent his brother to our home to get that CD and portable player we had, and when his brother came back I set it up so he could listen to our song. I just knew in my heart that this would be the last time he would ever hear our song. As our song played, he gave me a weak smile and gently squeezed my hand. When that song finished he just seemed to slip away."

I had to stop, as the tears just rolled from my eyes and I couldn't help it as I cried. That event may have happened ten years ago, but it still hurt so much. Both Lee-Ann and Abby held me in their arms until I went to the bedroom and lay down for a while.

I rested with my thoughts of my Bill for a while.

When I made my way back into the front room, Abby and Harold were sitting in front of my old CD player listening to, 'Wonderful Summer'.

Over and over it played. The look they were giving each other spoke volumes as they seemed to be es-tablishing their feelings for each other. I could see Lee-Ann through the kitchen door and she was smiling and humming along to the music as she started our supper cooking.

They both saw me at the same time and ran to me to hug me.

Abby surprised me by saying, "I sure hope that I can bond with my love as strongly as you had con-nected with Grandpa Bill."

For her sake I sure hoped so. I've got my fingers crossed for them.

The End