Remembering the summers...



Picture Courtesy of Google Image: Unknown Photographer!



There’s something about the warmth of a late-spring sun that takes me to my childhood years during the elementary and junior high schools.

The end of school year; final exams, which was then followed by report cards; playing football (soccer) in the back alleys with a little and usually deflated plastic ball; bottle of Coca Cola (or Canada Dry Orange) and muffin as a substitute for breakfast, lunch and dinner; riding our bikes, without a helmet, freely all over the streets in “our” neighbourhood; late wake-up calls and even later bed-times; unlimited black-and-white TV shows on our little red-tube television set with a rabbit antenna; hours of Cowboys & Indians or Cops & Robbers street play-time, which was usually followed by hours of reading or re-readings of my favourite books and comics, which included Adventures of Tintin (I had all of the hard-cover books in the series); helping my dad with the set-up of the “Cooler” (an old fashioned air-conditioning mechanical system that simply worked by splashing water on a straw filter while forcing wind through it… it worked great).

But most importantly, I miss the sound of untamed laughter of my childhood friends as it echoed through the streets and alleys of Tehran.  I’m sorry that I only got to experience it for the first 10 years of my life before it was stolen from us.

Thanks for reading and may your life be full of untamed laughter,

Armin