Summertime was and is one of the greatest things about growing up in Alabama. If you mention the season to me, it brings back memories of swimming pools, fishing, dirtball fights, forts, video games, baseball, fireworks, Frisbees, tennis, camp, and of course, girls. For boys everywhere growing up ruins summertime. Before puberty we see the season as one big adventure waiting for us. The simplest things capture our imaginations. A stick becomes a golden scabbard; a rock becomes a cannonball. Our backyard is a time portal to the seven seas or an unknown planet beyond our galaxy. Our rooms are full of hidden caves and buried treasure. Every day turns us into a new hero accomplishing a new superhuman task, rescuing civilization and mankind right before Mom calls us in for dinner. Life is excellent! And then…puberty.
With puberty comes an awareness of the opposite sex that preoccupies and overwhelms the young male mind, especially during the summer. Thoughts of adventure and heroism fade into thoughts of insecurity and self-awareness. The back yard turns into something you mow. Your room turns into an ordinary room with a mirror on a wall where you can ponder all of the changes your body is undergoing. Your house turns into a prison and your parents into wardens. Your brothers and sisters turn into objects of deep envy, reminders of how easy and beautiful life used to be. Nothing is the same.
If you talk to grown men about this change, most of them will agree; it is a place they never want to visit again! I believe most of our male adult lives are spent trying to get back to our childhood before puberty, when life was simple and we were heroes. It is the core of our being. We want to be heroes. It can be found in the politician, the CEO, the professional baseball player, the teacher, the engineer, the systems administrator, and every other man on the planet. All of us want to save the day. We want to be applauded and cheered for liberating civilization from the dark side once again. If you look hard enough, you can see it.
There are many male responses to this desire for heroism. Some men pursue it quietly and diligently at work or with their families. Others will seize the adoration they seek through military, corporate, or social conquest. Any way you look at it though, it is the foremost task in the heart and mind of the adult male to recapture his back yard youth and to once again become a hero! Don’t you think?
From my desktop to yours, it’s another Alabama memory.
