Is it Olton or Is It Youth?

I always think of Olton on a summer evening when the smell of a thunderstorm threatens. It starts with the hazy lights over the dusty diamond, then many adolescent adventures come back to me. “Watching” the baseball game while showing off my new shorts set, trying to catch the attention of some and avoid the attention of others. We drank pickle juice over ice and nursed fresh sunburns. These leisurely evenings always followed days of working or playing in unrelenting sun.
Making the drag, we drove in endless circles when gas, gossip, and time seemed unlimited. Who brought that traveling carnival to town? Who chose the music at the roller rink? Why did they both smell the same—cotton candy, stale cigar smoke, bad perfume, and sweat?

Then there were the stars. I never have gotten accustomed to living where the sky isn’t the most interesting feature of the landscape. The stars were so close and clear; they stretched from horizon to horizon. Fabulous. A friend in college asked me what the Milky Way looked like because his childhood skies were full of smog and city lights. Even now I am aware that the Big Dipper of the Minnesota sky is not where it is supposed to be.

The smell of the coming storm carries me away, then I come back to the land of 10,000lakes where mosquitoes, road work, traffic jams, and humidity are the signs of summer. I used to think it was youth I missed. Maybe it was Olton.