Summer time is here. The kids are out of school, and the pools are open. There is a heady, cockeyed optimism for adventure. ‘No more school books, no more teachers’ dirty looks.’ Neva June was named Neva Jane on her birth certificate, but was known in life as Neva June. She was born in June. I look at the next three months as a hurdle to leap before my favorite ‘Ber’ months commence. The thoughts of summer take me back to Pounds Hollow and the halcyon days of swimming. Neva J, Chet Jane, and I loved to swim at the Hollow. We made two to three trips to Pounds Hollow from Eldorado each week, around 20 miles each way in Neva J’s 57′ Chevy Convertible. The days were filled with swimming adventures and floating to the other side of the lake, which was way beyond the safety rope. As I floated in the quiet, I imagined Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and my part in the story.

Salameats on the grill this Memorial Day were a big hit. Aaron says we should get them more often. Additional cookouts are in order.

In the 1960s, you could not purchase firecrackers in Illinois. So when we obtained some illegal ones, the explosions were all the more exciting. Sparklers were popular and snakes. Snakes were little black buttons that, when you lit them they expanded into a snake-like shape. While we baby boomers set off our firecrackers and lit some snakes, the elders sat on Grandma A’s front porch and tried to see the fireworks at the Starlite Drive Inn. We could see them quite well, and they were excited to watch them from the box seats.

June is a good month to reflect on what has happened in 2026 and what lies ahead in the second act. We are in our second act and enjoying it. June reminds the Old Man that here he is, and another summer presents itself. Not like the other Junes before it, yet similarities. The similarities are the hook that captivates our imaginations. We are drawn into the dream. We look out of the wispy clouds and see the Pounds Hollow adventures floating on the lake.