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SUMMER has arrived. The sun is hot, the shade is warm. The grass seems a little greener, the smell of the pine trees seems a little stronger and the memories of youth come rushing back year after year after year. Your own childhood memories seem a little foggier, yet the stories seem to keep getting bigger and better.

The best part of this summer is that we get to share it with our daughter. Here’s a quick snapshot of the last few weeks: Seeing her little hands touch freshly cut grass, beach sand and forest leaves; seeing her eyes dart around as they follow a lightning bug or people passing on the boardwalk; the smell of chlorine and suntan lotion on her little shoulders as she gives me a big hug; the sound of laughter, splashing and amusement park rides. Feeling her weight shift on my back as I carry her through the woods on a hike.

A few short weeks that I’ll remember forever and she may have already forgotten. Her little 11 month-old brain is working SO hard to learn SO many new things that it hasn’t quite figured out yet that it might just be a good idea to remember some experiences too. That just means that we’ll have to keep having these good times together.

I know that my earliest memory is somewhere between 3 and 4 years old. And then once I started going to school I have lots of memories. Like sitting in a big circle on an ugly brown rug in a dark room in pre-school singing “This Old Man” or when we were sitting around the big round table in kindergarten with our heads down and my friend TK and I both looked up at each other and gave ‘thumbs up’ signs. My favorite summer memories mostly revolve around hiking, camping and living in the Adirondacks at NF from age 8 through the end of college. So many memories, some bad, most great. Aside from camp, I have fun memories on family vacations, long car trip games, riding my bike around the neighborhood until dark, falling asleep to the sound of crickets out my open window, swimming in our above-ground pool at home – walking in a circle for a half-hour in order to get a whirlpool going – all while listening to WPLJ or Z100 on our boombox (which had a blank cassette tape inserted in case a song we liked came on – in which case we had to hop out of the pool and sprint to the radio to hit record in time).

What are some of your favorite summer memories? What makes them so special?

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