The smells of summer remind me of many things: Quiet summer afternoons with my Aunt Frances walking quiet streets in Joplin MO, my grandmother's front porch in Kansas City, and swinging in the porch swing in the dark until the adults made me stop ("Stop that! The noise let's people know we're here on the porch. If we're quiet, we can watch the neighbors on our street without their knowing!" Without internet and with only about three TV channels that stopped broadcasting about ten p.m., the front porch brigade sat there nightly as entertainment (and it was!). I slept with the big window open, listening to night sounds and sometimes raising up in bed to peer down at the street below in the wee hours of the morning. Once in a while, I'd see a couple kiss, returning from a date. Sometimes I heard arguments in the night. What fun. And always, the moon above and the sounds of insects. I love Kansas City. I always will.
