Well, the honeysuckle is now in bloom beside our house, making it officially summer (at least to my mind).

When I was a child, our home had two honeysuckle vines that grew up the columns of the front porch, wicking the heady odor from the flowers into the house, especially at night. Now the scent takes me back to the summer after I’d completed 4th Grade and was free of studies, able to read for pleasure rather than by dictate. It was that summer that I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs, read some Robert Heinlein for myself, and found other treasures including Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys mysteries — all at the Sterling Free Public Library.

I think (according to Google maps) the library no longer housed in the original brick building where it was in my youth (with a WWI “potato digger” machine gun on a war monument out front of the library), though the building still stands and is in good repair. In my mind, that’s where the library remains, populated by those helpful librarians of the past, with an occasional rock collection on display on deep blue velvet, and the smells of ink from new books and the parchment, cloth, and leather of the older treasures. Just stepping into the building was magical because it offered a cool respite from hot summer days and the burning Kansas sun.

Those days were like something from Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. Kinder, gentler, magical times that I often dream I might return to. And how I wish I might somehow have shared such relaxed, quiet times with my children, rather than the hustle and bustle of modern-day life which they grew up with.

I have a feeling Heaven must have honeysuckle growing along its golden streets.