Summer of ‘96
The summer before my Dad died was memorable, because it felt so normal. I think it stands out now because it was just at the end of one chapter and the beginning of another that we couldn’t possibly have predicted. Otherwise, I don’t consider the year 1996 to be noteworthy at all, but it was pleasant and marks a sharp contrast to what was on the horizon. This was the July that Independence Day came out starring Will Smith. My family eagerly went to go see it twice and both times people stood up in the theater and cheered at the end like mankind had won an actual war. That’s kind of funny to me now — that a movie could be such a big deal to everyone. This was a momentous event in my childhood.
Later that month, my Mom and I drove out to a hotel in rural Georgia where we met up with my Grandmother and her friend, Jackie. They had both been nurses together years before, but were semi-retired by then. We all lived in South Carolina, Jackie lived in Georgia. The idea for that weekend was that we’d get together to watch the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta. And while the adults got to talk and spend time together, I’d be able to swim in the hotel’s pool and watch cable TV. On the long drive there, I remember my Mom and I listened to the Beatles for hours. This was still on a cassette tape it was so goddamn long ago, but March of that year the Beatle’s two-part compilation album Anthology 2 had been released and made big impression on me. We listened to it all the time at home. And I still think of certain Beatle’s songs in the order they were arranged on that album. In any case, we drove for a long time on two-lane country roads, not the highway. This was before Google Maps. This was before a lot of things. Then finally, the hotel pool appeared like an oasis in the desert as we pulled into a parking spot and unloaded the car. That water was so blue and it gets so hot in Georgia in the summertime, I couldn’t wait to jump in. I swam. We ate pizza. Jackie was incredibly excited about the Olympics being in what she called “my Atlanta.” That night, July 19th, we watched the opening ceremony and she was not disappointed. I don’t know if I’ve watched one since. The next day, we somehow ended up looking at antiques around Madison and Covington, Georgia, then getting something to eat. Later on, I watched cartoons, swam more. This isn’t a story about anything happening exactly. It’s right on the edge of something happening. A moment in time. When that weekend was over, my Mom and I drove back to South Carolina with the Beatles playing on the car’s stereo. I think my Dad had to work, so we told him all about our trip when we got home.
In January 1997, my Father died suddenly and unexpectedly. For a long time, that event and the previous summer seemed world’s part. Really though, only a few months of school separated one life experience from a radically different ordeal. A little while before he died, my Dad actually gave me a new VHS tape of Independence Day and it was such a big deal to me. Just a movie, you know. It would be a while before life felt normal again after he died. Maybe that makes that summer shine a little brighter than in might otherwise. Maybe it was just good all on its own. Anyway, I know I can’t drive off into a memory. You can’t recapture everything about that time, but you know if I listen to certain songs or just kind of picture sitting in the passenger’s seat on my way through Georgia, it doesn’t feel that long ago. God, he was only 51.
