Summer breeze

See the curtains hangin’ in the window,
in the evenin’ on a Friday night.
A little light a-shinin’ through the window,
Let’s me know everything is alright.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine,
blowing through the jasmine in my mind…
Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom…

Summer Breeze
Seals and Crofts, 1972

This is one of my favorite songs, and its words and melody have stayed with me all through the many years since I first heard it in the fall of 1972. It’s force and staying power are somewhat mysterious, but there is a reason, and it’s rooted in a particular time and place.

Summer Breeze was one of about four songs I recall distinctly from that year and 1973, my last year of college at the University of New Orleans, and the year I truly felt I had gone out on my own, living for the first time in an apartment instead of the dorm, and with the end of four years of college approaching.

The summer of 1972 had been a golden interlude in the undergraduate journey I was on, the final summer I worked at a job alongside the Mississippi at Algiers. After work, I remember taking long bike rides atop the levee beside that river on warm August nights when the moon shone across the wide river and illuminated a path before me. It was the summer I spent dreaming of the freedom and independence that would be mine once I had finished that degree and could finally move to South Carolina and begin my life away from home.

I spent all that summer lookng at classified ads for an apartment, near school, in a quiet neighborhood, within biking distance. As I’ve written before in this journal, I found it finally in late August on a rather inconspicuous street off Gentilly Boulevard. The street was named Wisteria, and it was near other streets similarly named after flowers such as Clematis, which was perpendicular to it. I liked that.

Those first heady weeks of getting used to an apartment were very happy ones because I was liberated from the cubicles that had been my home for the past couple of years. As I drove my car down St. Roch Boulevard toward campus each morning, I felt as if some weight had been lifted from me. It’s hard to explain. It was as if some dividing line had been crossed. I was in unfamiliar, but longed-for terrain, where everything was different. And, for a while on those drives, upon turning on the radio, that song, Summer Breeze, would be playing and I’d remember the “sweet days of summer” just past and think I truly knew what Seals was referring to when he wrote those words, “Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.”

That fall turned into winter and spring semester followed. I was taking six courses each semester, doing virtually nothing but reading, studying and writing various papers. But for some reason, despite all the academic pressure that year, it was not a burden, but almost fun. The courses were stimulating, the classes much smaller, and I saw the end in sight.

And each day when I came home from classes, “I walked up on to the doorstep, through the screen and across the floor…” into the sanctuary that was my first apartment. How I loved that place, beat-up furniture and all. I can hear distinctly, even now, the big kitchen window fan as I turned it on, and the cool air was drawn through open windows in the bedoom, down the hall to the kitchen. And I would sit at a formica table and start thinking of the suppper I was going to fix, the novel I was going to be reading later that evening, and, the inviting front porch where I would sit outside about 9 or 10 most nice nights and gaze at the stars over Gentilly Boulevard and dream of the future.

(Written Nov. 26, 1999)

It is amazing how a song, a melody, a few words sometimes touch us so deeply when important moments in our lives occur. It fascinates me that they stay always inseparable part of certain memories of our past! It’s a delight to read this entry, Oswego, and it made me recollect a few of my own memories of long ago when I dreamt lighthearted of a promising and happy future. Thank you. Smiles to you!

As always, my friend, an exquisite entry! I hope that “future” has been and will be all that you dreamed of in 1972. If the season is just right and the wind blows just right, the scent of jasmine will waft through the windows here yet. In the deep heat of summer here, a gentle breeze is the most welcome of all companions. You write with soul, Oswego!!

“Just for a moment I was back at school…and felt that old familiar pain…” Do you know that song? Dan Fogelberg? Auld Lang Syne? Anyway, it is THE song for me. THE HOLIDAY SONG. It is not christmas until I hear it,and I must be alone in my car. For two years, oddly enough, I missed it. It seems they just don’t play some of the old seventies stuff on the radio anymore (S&C included.) [Jude Alo

But twice, TWICE this season, I’ve heard it and it’s poignancy has struck me each time, only I haven’t been alone. The first time I actually had to move my hand over to the driver’s seat and gesture for my husband to be quiet. It’s just until the end of the song I said. He talked anyway, kind of unconsciously. The second time we were both quiet. He let me have my peace. [Jude Alone]A4464

Sure, I could just buy the record and listen anytime I want (Like I just did with George Harrison’s greatest hits,) but then that romantic surprise element is gone. I just like sitting in my car at a stop light with a chill in the air and suddenly hearing my song, even just a part of it as I spin the dial. I like waiting for rain to turn to snow and back again. Yeah. Happy New Year Oz. Pea

Peace to you (Not Peas to you, as in above note. Although, if you like peas, go ahead and indulge! haha)

Yeah– it’s nothing like the first real apartment. It’s yours, and you can do what you want, you are free. Me too, recall some special events together with special melodies, you feel the place, the smell, the feeling, the air.. Your entry triggers my memories..

music and my dogs over the years have been my comfort to peace….i never had the opportunity to live alone I think it is something sadly missed….I encourage my kids to have that pleasure, it helps you realize life and makes you grow Happy 2002 in your part of the States, Oswego!! (spirit under repair)

Looking up

December 30, 2001

Oswego, you’re terrific as always. Music favorites come by unexpectedly or by design and transport us in time. Or something beams us up. Oh, so pleasantly. Thanks.

I was 11 when Summer Breeze graced my ears through a radio purchased as a birthday gift by my parents. I very clearly remember listening to it with my feet dangling from the top bunk of my bed. I loved it then. I understand it now. Happy New Year my friend.

Love the song! For some reason it always made me think of the New England costal area, big wooden houses with windows open and gauzey curtains floating on the seabreeze. I finally saw,felt and experienced that when we lived in Maine and MA for a while 1990-92. The springs up there were breathtaking and mindblowing. And I had those lovely sheer curtains on windows overlooking the bay. [Willo2]A3708

Have a nice Years Eve and I wish you all the best for the year to come!

Have you already thought of publishing what you tell in OD? I read every day of things which are not worth half of what you write. The perfect, precise words, suggestive of your stories, wind harmoniously and give an impression of absolute perfection, mastery of writing completely remarkable ..

Seals & Crofts were my favorite, too. I used to listen to their records over and over in the 70’s. I met them on a few occasions when they gave talks about the Baha’i Faith (which I belong to) after concerts. They are very special people, and wrote some wonderful songs.

April Fool!

December 31, 2001

My gosh, this is close to my experience…I, too, associate that song with a feeling of liberation that year… and I remember that song SO well. How appropriately the street names seem to fit in with it. Thanks for a trip down memory lane!

HarpHill (2)

I enjoyed reading this entry and now I’ll try to remember where I was and what I was doing in ’72… my big problem is remembering only part of a song and humming it often but nothing else comes to me. Happy New Year, Oswego.

I’ve never had a first apartment. Or anyhting distinctly my own. I’ve shared living all my life