Red Sky Nights

It is the time of year we’ve all been waiting for, when the town seems to wake up from its slumber – everything and everyone starts buzzing around, more and more people fill the sidewalks, stoops, and stores, and the cycle of life repeats itself in glorious, various fashions. The flowers along the Bike Path finally blossom into their pinnacle, while families are found venturing happily and collectively along the decaying yet somehow sentimentally appealing concrete sidewalks of downtown Bristol. Sip ‘N Dip’s drive-thru line is wrapped around the building while the boats across the bay migrate from land to water, inching closer to Hope Street, while raising the sea level in Bristol Harbor. Downtown is somehow brighter – it is happier, like something out of a post-World War II movie where the troops have finally come home. Olde Tyme baseball breaks out on the Town Common, where the Bristol Blues play glove-free and carefree. On the other side of the gazebo is the basketball court, where the best players in town and beyond flock to play at noon and don’t disperse until the lights cut off at 9:45. You can smell the Portuguese Fest all the way down on Wood Street at St. Elizabeth’s, and if you somehow get satisfied enough, you can head on down to Vet’s Park, where you’ll find the diamonds where I spent some of the best nights of my childhood in the twilight of the Bristol sunset. On them will be boys playing ball with a little extra energy because school’s finally over, diving for easy catches just to get dirty, while the girls a little “ahead” of the others will whisper and giggle with their fingers in the fence bordering the left-field line over which little ballplayer is the cutest. You can hear “please return that ball, if possible” bellowing from the little league park all over town, whether you’re getting some ice cream on Thames Street or finding some mischief on High Street. You could be loitering on the benches next to downtown Dunkin’ Donuts waiting for the next cute girl from out of town to walk by, or loitering at the chairs just down the street outside BHOP doing the same thing, because someone told you to move. You could sit inside the Bagel Shop too long, and some old guy will sit down with you to tell you about how Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams each had the greatest individual seasons of all time back in 1941, and how he cried when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. You might wander down to Colt State Park to play some Frisbee and have some BBQ, or if you were lucky enough a few years ago, you could’ve watched the greatest All-Star team this town’s ever seen play ball the right way. It’s the time of year where, if you don’t have a pool, you can pool-hop every neighborhood up and down State Street with only a pair a shorts on because the Sun is staring down at Bristol, Rhode Island so accusingly, you can’t even stay wet – and hey, even if you get caught, you’re so thankful it’s smoldering hot out that you’ll go swimming down at the Town Beach, which even has a little water in its seaweed and a little sand in its shells and rocks. Later, once you’re done playing ball, it’s time for man hunt – but before then you guys head down to Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of State and Hope and flirt with the girls working until they give you some free donuts and ice water, because, you know, you spent all your allowance on gallons of water from Bristol Mart already. You’ll talk about how much you love or hate the Red Sox, depending on what week it is, and you and all your friends will gang up on your one buddy who’s a Yankee fan a million different times.

During the week before the parade, no matter where you are downtown, you’ll hear live bands playing outside Colt-Andrews’ all through the night, and even if you think you’re too cool to hang out down there, you’ll end up down there anyway. You’ll jump from cookout to cookout, eating burgers and s’mores, swatting away gnats and mosquitoes all night while sitting around the fire. July 3^rd is always destined to be a night you won’t forget, for one reason or another, and the 4^th will be even better, as you watch Bristol’s spectacular and unmatchable display of fireworks either wishing you had someone to kiss or thankful that you do. You’ll sit down with family or friends to watch the parade the next day, for an hour or so, until you get so bored you’re willing to walk up and down Hope Street looking for any of your buddies. When you’re little, you always get excited for the carnival, and your friends always bust each others’ chops over who’s too scared to ride the Sky Master, and you’ll go with them every night, no matter what, till you’re out of money, then you’ll run home and give your mom an excuse to give you more money. You don’t even mind sitting in the barber shop all day to get cut, because during this time of year, anywhere with Air Conditioning is your sanctuary, and you’re dreading that long walk back downtown.

And as you get older, although your interests change, your childish infatuation with this time of year will always remain. No, this “this time of year”, instead of walking or riding a bike everywhere, you’ll have a car – and you don’t care how much gas is, you’re putting the windows down and you, your friend in the passenger seat, and your four or five friends squeezed into the three-person backseat are going to the beach. The record labels put out their best artists this time of year, and after the release date’s been pushed back two or three times, you finally get that greatly anticipated CD the day it comes out, and you along with every other kid in town is going to play it in your new car till you want to throw it out. You’ll fall in love – or at least think you’ve fallen in love – this time of year, and it’s so new to you that you won’t want to do anything else but hang out with them. You don’t even care if he or she goes to a different school, because this time of year is going to last forever. You’ve been waiting all year for these three months, so those vacation assignments your teachers gave you can wait until the night before the first day of school.

Then…

The sun will start setting earlier, the days will get shorter, the beaches will get emptier, your mom will remind you that it’s time to start school shopping, and the cruelest routine known to sophisticated civilization initiates – the winding down of the very best part of the year. You will sit and plot and plan and try to think of a way to delay the inevitable, but deep in your subconscious thoughts you know it’s no use. So unwillingly, you get ready to be cold again, you take your last beach visit, you sign up for Fall Ball, start double-sessions, or start training for basketball; you even do that stupid school reading you forgot all about. You reminisce about how great it’s been, and even though it’s so hard to let go, you know you have to. The feelings you got from this time of year may never be recreated, but you find a little comfort in the fact that you’ll never lose the memories, for as long as you live. Get ready, everybody. It’s Summer Time.