Ray Bradbury remembers being born. I am grateful that he recorded so many of his memories and imaginations from our favorite back-east town.
... I took a long look at the green apple trees and the old house I was born in and the house next door where lived my grandparents, and all the lawns of the summer I grew up in ... "Just This Side of Byzantium" introduction to Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine
The summer of ’28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma’s belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury. (William Morrow, Amazon.com)
Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather’s renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley’s bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay. It can be a best friend moving away, a human time machine who can transport you back to the Civil War, or a sideshow automaton able to glimpse the bittersweet future.
Come and savor Ray Bradbury’s priceless distillation of all that is eternal about boyhood and summer. (Avon Books, Amazon.com)
[Dandelion Wine should be banned from all schools. I don’t really mean that, but too often I meet people who don’t like Ray Bradbury’s writings because they felt the book or stories were forced upon them. I wish that everyone might have the opportunity to discover this incredible feel-good summer vacation for themselves, that they might enjoy it every summer thereafter and forever.]
