I’ve always considered myself quite lucky to have many fond memories from my childhood and adolescence.  I’m very nostalgic, and I love pictures.  I have albums and albums of pictures from middle school and high school (when digital pictures were essentially non-existent).  Many times, as I go on a cleaning binge in the spare room, I get side tracked flipping through at least one if not more of those photo albums.

Recently, I found pictures from the summer of 1997.  (On a side note, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years.  I think about how the interns a work this summer were born in 1997, and then I suddenly feel old.  Very old.  But I digress.)

It was the summer my friends and I were 15.  We were rising sophomores in high school.  It was the end of childhood and the beginning of young adulthood.  We were young enough to not (legally) be allowed to work too many hours in a week, but old enough to be out all day at the beach and then find our way to the boardwalk or a friend’s house in the evening.

Ocean kayaks, salt air, first love, coconut scented tanning lotion, run the bases, Oakley sunglasses, body surfing, snacks from Loretta’s, brilliant sunshine, humid nights…it’s all in the album – a perfect montage of that summer.

It’s been a few weeks since I returned the album to it’s place under the bed in the spare room.  Since then, I’ve thought back to the days on the beach, evenings on screened in back porches, and nights at the boardwalk from 20 years ago.  That summer is still so vivid in my mind.  Looking back, I guess it’s easy to see why.  While those summer months may have only been a snip of time over the course of our lives, it was when we were coming of age.  We forged an unbreakable bond as we saw each other grow from kids into young adults.

That summer was special; it was significant to our young lives.  I hope my memories never fade.