A fond look back on a summer crush

It was the summer of '64 at our Dewey Beach cottage on Rodney Street. If you've ever seen the now-vintage movie from 1971, "The Summer of '42," you can picture what I mean. Dewey Beach was a spread of mostly simple, old-fashioned cottages. Our street was a little busier because there were piers and a marina at the end of it.

You didn't need air conditioning, so windows were open and you could hear that ding-ding sound of ropes hitting against the metallic masts of the sailboats, and the roar of boat motors when you woke up on a blue-and-gold summer morning. There's no school, it's summer and there are no devices to generate homework or a list of summer reading assignments, thank goodness! Just the pleasure of free days to think and do whatever you wanted.

Maybe the truck of the traveling Bond Bread man had dropped off some donuts to go with the cup of coffee I had always drunk since I was 4 years old – instant Taster's Choice. My grandmother would flirt with the bread man. His last name was Spicer, and he was as jolly as his jelly rolls.

Then I'd watch "I Love Lucy" on the black-and-white TV at 11 a.m. It had a box to rotate the rooftop antenna, but there was only one station, Channel 16 in Salisbury, Md., and it was not all that dependable. After "Lucy," I'd sit on the floor and watch "The Jack LaLanne Show," an exercise show to work off the jelly roll! Hula Hoops were more fun, however.

My girlfriend Georgeanne was my favorite summer pal. We'd giggle all night long in the back bedroom, which was paneled with knotty pine wood covered with what looked like disapproving eyes. We shared laughs about boys and quirky teachers.

One evening a handsome blonde man came knocking on the screen porch door. "Jim ... Jim?" he called. "Are you home?" Georgeanne and I had been rocking on beach chairs making our plans for an evening on the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk and jumping off of the lifeguard stands, probably. But this man was charming and full of bull. "Jim, you have two beautiful girls," he said. Maybe the Jack LaLanne sit-ups were finally paying off after all!

He was a dashing crop duster, we learned. Our ears pricked up when we heard he was arranging an early morning fly-by with my father. We ran down to the pier at the marina, talking animatedly as we watched our crab lines twitch with the bait-wrapped sticks. We ran back to the cottage with buckets of captive crabs.

My mother always fried them up at midnight and served blackberry buckle, a kind of cobbler with an undulating crust that looked like buckles, as a chaser to the crabs. The berries came from bushes in the backyard and were like beautiful, red-purple jewels when stewed. Sweet dreams! But we didn't sleep. We talked of Al Johnson, the handsome crop duster, all night long. We had learned that he was also a nighttime bouncer at The Pink Pony on the north end of the Boardwalk. We made our way there and sat out front on a bench until he finally came out! "I'll take you girls on a plane ride tomorrow," he said.

Thrilled, we ran back to Dolle’s and stood under the light of the Big Red Sign. "We have accomplished our mission," we gasped, gulping a glistening arch of water from the fountain. The next day he picked us up in his navy-blue Wild Cat convertible with white leather seats. He drove us to the old Rehoboth airport while he talked on the radio with Arthur Godfrey, the radio and TV star from the 1950s, who was landing there soon. Al, Georgeanne and I met him on the tarmac; he was wearing sunglasses and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Celebrities flying into Rehoboth! Al knew everyone!

There was a popular song out then, "Blue Velvet," bluer than velvet were his eyes. We changed the lyrics to "Brown Velvet," which was the color of Al's eyes, and sang it all night long. We overheard my father talking with him on the phone. Al was crop dusting at dawn the next day. Georgeanne and I promptly made a plan. We weren't missing the chance to see him again! He was obviously taken with us. He had said we were beautiful, after all!

First, we moved a quilt to the outside shower. Then we set an alarm clock for 3:30 a.m., but we didn't need it, because we didn't sleep all night. We arose at the appropriate time and arranged pillows in our bed to look like we were still sleeping in case my mother checked, since our usual time to saunter in for "I Love Lucy" was 11 a.m. This would give us time to fly! Feeling a bit like Lucy and Ethel, we tried to quietly open and close the doors of my father's company car. We hunched in the backseat, covering ourselves with the quilt.

At 4 a.m. the light in the cottage kitchen went on, and my father slowly drank his coffee and read his book. Finally, he got in his car, slammed the door and started the motor. We tried not to sneeze all the way down predawn Cave Neck Road. Finally, the car stopped in front of the Draper/King Cole factory. Lights glowed in the dark, and the sound of conveyor belts carrying beans churned in the background. Up we jumped and shouted, "Top of the morning, Old Bean!"

I should have worried for my father's heart, but he survived the shock and immediately called my mother. The ruiner of most things fun, she made us ride around in the hot, dusty August fields all day in the back of my father's car, never seeing Al Johnson once!

Later, she arranged for him to fly low over the dunes while kissing a woman, as we sat on the beach crying to the sound of crashing waves! Ten years down the road, Georgeanne married Al Johnson, but they later divorced.

I'm glad I didn't know that back when I was singing "Brown Velvet," but things turned out pretty good for me in the romance department, and a lot has gone on since the summer of '64. Summer crushes are like that!