"It Turned Colder, That's Where It Ends"

There are some redeemable qualities about summer, and now that it's over I can speak of them.

Often, in the summer we would travel with other Filipinos to water parks and amusement parks, bringing along picnics. We would meet up at someone's house or apartment and caravan (quite literally because this was the age of mini-vans and some actually had Dodge Caravans) to different places. Each family would pack food, soda, rice, fruits and other things, like a beach ball.

My favorite spot to have picnics was Glen Island in New Rochelle. We'd arrive as early as 11 A.M. and would leave when the sun set because that was when the park would close.

Some of the dad's would bring together three wooden picnic tables, while others manned the grill which would be casting off delectable scents of barbecue and charcoal. The mothers would be plating chips, cutting up fruits and keeping an eye on the children. We would start off with a game of volleyball, then make our way across the island: at the swingset, then the beach and inevitably we would end up at the "ruins" of the "old castle" where we would sit at the boarded well and discuss everything and nothing. Then we'd head back for more food, watching the sun set and feeling the air get cooler.

The hardest thing was always being the first family to leave and in order not to do that everyone left at the same time, driving in different directions to get home.

Now it's hard to keep this up since the second generation has grown up and we are in different places and families move and grow and change.

I wont be to many if any at all of these since I've moved down here.

I never get homesick but I still yearn for those summer days when all I had to worry about was getting a ball over a net and not being the last family to go. I miss the days when we watched the sunset and talked of nothing and everything.

I guess it's time for me to head home, in another direction.

The hardest thing was being the first one to leave.

Me.