In the Night Air, I Roll Back the Years
Wrapping my sweater around my shoulders and snuggling into the patio lounger on my inner-city balcony, I overlook the twinkling lights of a spectacular downtown cityscape and deeply inhale the cool summer night air. With a glass of wine in one hand and all my senses on high alert — listening and watching -- I take in all the details surrounding me. Smells have a way of transporting you back in time.
The ’60s hippy era and outrageous ’70s are deeply ingrained in my city girl’s soul. Future generations can only envy my memories of the “good old days.” As I cast my mind back, I linger on those glorious early years before life got real.
The Glory Days
During those decades, our mothers moved from kitchen management into the workplace, and we found ourselves with more freedom than any youth could have dreamed possible. Our more worldly friends introduced us to strange and exotic foods like McDonald’s burgers and pizza, and my 15-year-old self could never have imagined that burgers didn’t have to look and taste like hockey pucks.
Fake IDs were rolled out, granting us access to those forbidden hotel bars (out of town was easiest). But you would be more likely to find us hanging out at local pizzerias and diners, where we deposited the last of our quarters into tabletop jukeboxes to listen to the best music ever written.
Growing up watching All in the Family, Jackie Gleason, and The Flintstones, we didn’t take life too seriously and left politics, correctness, and social injustice to university students, activists, and our future selves. We did whatever the heck we wanted so long as no one got hurt (or caught). We didn’t pull out guns or knives to settle differences — although if beer was spilled, punches were a possibility until someone coughed up the coin for another round.
Nobody but nobody knew how to have more fun than we did on so little, especially in the hours after dark! Pulling into a gas station and depositing $1.50 worth of change in exchange for gas was plenty. And if there was enough money left over to buy a case of beer, a bottle of Asti Spumanti, Baby Duck, or lemon gin, life was as smooth as a newly paved highway!
After emptying the contents of our wallets in the bar, it was time to pile into muscle cars, dilapidated collections of parts on four bald tires, or an old pickup truck, and head down to the river, the “woods” or, if we were really lucky, some country kid’s acreage to continue the party around a smoky fire. If no invitation were forthcoming, we would enjoy a drive along the river’s path through the city before making our way home. In those days, going for a drive with no destination in mind was a stand-alone activity. Yeah, we might have been over the limit but it was a different time.
I doubt the city's rhythm is as kind and innocent as those days but just for this moment, sitting here breathing in the night air, I am so glad I was a part of it all and survived to reminisce the good times.
Back to the Future
My home is located in an area of stately old houses slowly surrendering themselves to infills and low- and high-rise condos and apartments. My view stretches all the way to a city skyline still ablaze in red as the sun yawns and bids me goodnight. I am bewitched by my little kingdom and welcome the theatre of life after dark:
- Flickering shadows of a TV behind a neighbour’s curtain;
- A moment of silence broken by the distant sound of a dog barking;
- The boisterous laughter and music from a neighbour’s patio;
- The roar of motorcycles and fast cars bringing back fond memories of carefree times we thought would never end;
- Emergency vehicles rushing to some unseen incident leaving me to wonder if I’ll read about some terrible accident the following morning;
- Overhead, an occasional small aircraft’s flickering red lights as it makes its way home to a nearby airstrip;
- Hearing folk offering sleepy but contented goodnights to friends on the front porch of their homes;
- Like a scene out of Rear Window, watching as lights blink off in apartment windows;
- Smelling a whiff of smoke from someone’s last cigarette before retiring to their bed.
I am so grateful for the senses that allow me to reach back in time and reminisce about the resilience of my younger self. We did not dwell in our parents’ basements nor were we bubble-wrapped for safety. Life happened in the streets and was about falling down and picking ourselves back up. We were tough, nothing could hurt us, and we were going to live forever — that’s the magic of the city’s summer night air!
