Favorite Summer Memory 1981

Teacher's Write: For today's warm-up, let's celebrate summer and practice "writing what we know" using memory to create rich, vivid and emotional scenes! 

Share your favorite summer memory from your teen years. Now, don’t just give a summary of what happened, but write the scene as a great storyteller would. Pretend you are writing a scene in a novel or short story. 

• Set up the situation.
• Describe the setting.
• Give details about what you were wearing, what you were feeling, who you were with, what sensations you remember (was it hot? cold? windy? what did it smell like?). 
• Include dialogue.
• Make this an active, entertaining/emotional scene! 

Summer of 1981

It is 6:00 a.m. in the morning. As my room becomes lighter, I can hear the last of the crickets chirping outside my window. Wearing my OP shorts and my favorite t-shirt, I grab my suitcase and head outside. 

Our Ford Country Squire station wagon is filled with beach toys and towels, food, and suitcases. We are on our way to Capistrano Beach! For the last five summers, we have rented a beach house during the last week of May. My little brother and I are the last of six children, and so sometimes our parents would let us invite cousins or friends to come with us, but now I am eighteen, and going solo. My cousin, Briggs, and my brother, Curtis, are deciding which cassette tapes to bring while I put my pillow in the middle seat.

"Hey, I have the new Christopher Cross tape if you want that, and make sure you bring your Supertramp."

Just then, a car pulled up in front of our house with my two boy friends, Darren and Kent. My friends and I ran around with a group of boys that were so fun. I had jokingly asked one of them to come, and the night before, they called my mom (while I was on a date with someone else) and asked if they could tag along. I didn't even know. 

Pleadingly, they showed my dad their two small duffel bags, which they said could easily fit in the back. They had this plan they would spend a few days with us and then Darren's little brother was coming for his senior trip and they would be their chaperones. I was ecstatic. What could my parents say? Darren and Kent were cute and made a good case.

"We promise not to eat too much!"

My mom laughed, and said that food was not a problem. I can't believe they are actually letting them come! My dad, skeptically, put the Ford Squire in reverse, and we were off.