California: Summer Songs and Summer Vacations

Summer is approaching, and that means vacation. For me, summer ignites a feeling of euphoria and celebration that was built in during school years, when summertime was a long three-month reprieve from school, a full quarter of the year. When summer came it was like crossing a threshold into heaven. And there were always songs to proclaim the arrival of summer, and capture that feeling of celebration.

We’ll go swimming every day
No time to work just time to play
If your folks complain just say
It’s summertime

Even when I got old enough to work summer jobs, that feeling of summer freedom stuck with me. It was a different mindset, a break from the school routine. Even when I had a job, there was always travel, and I seized every opportunity. Summer is when everyone travels. Summer is almost synonymous with vacation travel.

What great anticipation it was when summer approached! When that last day of school finally came, the doors flew open and the kids burst out like an explosion. When you’re school age, three months is a long time. When school let out it felt as if you were looking at an expanse of time that stretched to infinity.

Those summer vacation memories are packed into the songs of summer. When you hear those nostalgic records, the memories come pouring in fresh, as if you were transported back to those times.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high…

The songs bring back images and tactile memories of summers past, the sunshine and warm air, the smell of fresh grass, ocean breezes, whatever cluster of impressions are connected to that sound in your own summer memories.

Some of the songs are about summer things. Others are summer songs because that was when you heard them, when they moved you and became a part of you, and branded themselves on that moment and the place where you were.

No records ever embodied summer more than those of the Beach Boys. They were all about the teenagers’ experience of summer in California.

Coming from the landlocked middle of the country, I dreamed longingly of California. Los Angeles was the ultimate fairytale land, where dreams come true. Hollywood, the movie industry, the recording industry, heavenly weather, beaches, mountains … Disneyland! It seemed like paradise.

The surfing songs, “Surfer Girl” and “Surfin’ USA”; the car songs: “Little Deuce Coup” and “Shut Down” echoed across the country. Those of us trapped inland experienced California through the songs. I ached to go there.

Growing up in the Midwest I always felt far from all the exciting things that were happening in the world. The Beach Boys songs painted sound pictures of the mythical California. It was like heaven to me, but seemed inaccessible forever. How could I ever find my way to such a miraculous place, with the beaches and cars and California girls?

Then one day I got my chance to join my father, his wife and her two kids on a trip to California. We headed to Los Angeles where my uncle lived, and I got to experience the fantastic world of the Beach Boys.

It was 1965, and it was a thrilling time to be a teenager. The music of the time was energetic and full of life and promise. We packed into my dad’s blue Chevrolet, five of us, and cruised across the American Southwest to Los Angeles.

Keeping three kids relatively civilized on a drive of many hours is always a challenge. And five people packed into a small space for hours on end can become a combustible combination. To smooth things over, the car radio was on most of the time, and though my father didn’t care for Top 40 music, that was pretty much what you got on the car radio. It must have driven him crazy after a while hearing me sing along with songs that to him were annoyingly repetitive and trite.

Here we come again, ooooooh, Catch us if you can, ooooh.

It was the Dave Clark Five clattering out of the dashboard speaker, and I sang along with it.

“Oh no,” said my father. “Not again…”

The songs of that summer still bring back the rush of euphoria of California. The trip replays in full color when I hear: “Like a Rolling Stone”, “I Got You Babe”, “Heart Full of Soul”, “Satisfaction”, “Eve of Destruction”, “Do You Believe in Magic?” and dozens more. The songs bring back the feeling of the moment, because they were part of what felt so good at the time.

We stayed with my cousins in Northridge. I got to join in with their life in California. They walked around barefoot. I tried to, but the scorching pavement burned my feet.

We got to see the TV shows they had, an abundance compared to what we had back in the Midwest. The foods they had seemed space age, like straws that turned milk into chocolate milk. It was all different from the clunky world I knew. It seemed like a much more advanced world, like sci fi.

I even got to try surfing at Santa Monica Beach. My father caught a home movie of me actually getting up and riding a wave for a few seconds before I wiped out. It was the summer of “California Girls” and they were even more beautiful than the images evoked by the song.

It was fantastic. When the trip came to an end, I hated to return to my mundane life. But my life was forever brightened by those experiences. I had seen possibilities I had never seen, and that was irreversible. I would never lose those memories. The songs would bring them back.

A couple of years later I got my chance to explore that other California in the north: San Francisco. It was 1967, and by then I was old enough to drive. I joined my good buddy Jeff in his red Ford Falcon convertible and we headed straight for San Francisco. It was the Summer of Love, and San Francisco was the center of it all. It was the center of the new styles of music, the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead and many others.

If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

We drove across the Great Plains, climbed to the top of the Continental Divide and then began the long descent to the coast, across the desolate, dreamy landscapes of Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. When we reached Reno, we crossed over into that mythical paradise.

The moment we crossed the state line it seemed we entered another world. It wasn’t just a line on a map. The border was drawn at a place where the landscape changed abruptly. We left the desert behind and found ourselves in the verdant country of Tahoe National Forest.

When we reached Sacramento, the capital, it was broiling hot. From that point we descended steadily and the temperature dropped mile by mile. We had the top down and the radio blaring as the Bay Area came into view. It unfolded spectacularly to the tune of “Light My Fire,” with its baroque organ blaring into the wind: Oakland, the Bay, the bridges, Alcatraz. It was as if the DJ had specially selected that song to accompany our grand entrance into the magical city.

The exploration of San Francisco was thrilling. We walked through crowds on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, stood on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. It was priceless to be able to see in person what we had heard so much about. It lived up to its reputation in some ways. In others, my imaginings disintegrated in collision with realities.

It was such an exciting summer, and we had headed to the center of it all. Of course, there will never be another summer like that. That innocence is irretrievable. But the music of that summer will always bring those memories back to me, fresh.

Your humble reporter,
A. Colin Treadwell