Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

When we have a cup of coffee in the afternoon, it doesn’t taste the same as that coveted morning brew. It’s something akin to the unforgettable and evocative hazy, hot, and humid nights of summer during our youths. The uncomfortably stuffy evenings of our adulthoods just don’t have the same allure. Once upon a time, being a kid in summertime had its benefits—school being out for starters—and we expected and more-or-less embraced the inevitable heat and humidity one-two punch. And, of course, there was baseball, the quintessential summer game—both the professional variety and the personal variations of the sport that we played with abandon in the warmest of warm and sticky air masses.

There, too, was nothing quite like attending a baseball game at night during the hottest of dog days. Dog days and hot dogs at the ballpark—who could ask for anything more? In the grips of pre-game exhilaration—days before as a matter of fact—a friend of mine would proclaim, “First round of hot dogs is on me!” The frankfurter in that singular time and place mattered. And as our sneakers stuck to Shea Stadium’s concrete stands, runways, and bathrooms as we exited into the soupy nights—courtesy of countless spilled watery beers and flat sodas—fond memories were made. I never minded coming home from a ballgame reeking of second-hand cigarette smoke. On the other hand, beginning and ending each day of high school stinking like a dirty chimney—from smoking teens on sardine-packed school busses—elicits no such nostalgia.

Recently, I watched the Netflix documentary The Sons of Sam: Descent Into Darkness. The series of murders and shootings by David Berkowitz—and probably others—occurred in 1976 and 1977, when the latter’s New York City summer also featured a brutal heatwave, blackout, and widespread looting and vandalism. The serial crimes were recurring headlines in the local tabloids and young people—who fit the targeted profiles—were understandably apprehensive to be out and about at night. When Berkowitz was finally apprehended, I was in Boston with an older neighbor and brother. We spied the front-page story on a newspaper in a then ubiquitous sidewalk machine and had to secure one to commemorate our trip and the huge news from our hometown—the “Son of Sam”capture.

The prior night—the night of the arrest, August 10, 1977—the three of us attended a game at Fenway Park, a slugfest in which the home team Red Sox eked out a victory, 11-10, over the visiting Angels. It was a night to remember, for sure, appropriately hazy, hot, and humid. And, yes, our footwear stuck bigtime to Fenway Park’s stands, runways, and bathrooms—the antiquated men’s bathrooms where one and all urinated into a long trough at our feet. But such once-in-a-lifetime experiences are the stuff of lasting memories. The “Son of Sam” denouement was colossal news and our trip to Beantown—from our perspectives at the time—was also a big deal. I was only fourteen during the adventure and Boston seemed far, far away from the world I knew in the Big Apple, which was then a mess but with a certain character and charm that it very definitely lacks in the here and now. The Democratic mayoral primary race in 1977—a heated affair in that sultry summer—featured the likes of Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo, Bella Abzug, Percy Sutton, Herman Badillo, and embattled incumbent Abe Beame. There were a few political heavyweights in that lineup vying to be mayor in what were troubled times. Fast forward forty-four years and troubled times are back with a vengeance. But where are the heavyweights? Perhaps they have gone the way of those hazy, hot, and humid nights—the ones we used to know.