Stand By Me (or is it Goonies?)

Friday night can only mean one thing -- ICE CREAM!

Somehow conning DH into driving us to the park, the walker geared up for a walk home. It is still too warm to do the entire two miles, but we thought we could "walk the ice cream off" with a stroll home from the stand in the park.

The ice cream experience is always a juggle. One person holds the leads and tries to keep the pets calm while the other stands in line to order. The teens who work the stand are nice, but slow...

Dogs get soft serve. Old people get sugar free pina colada and cherry snow cones.

It doesn't take long for the dogs to devour the ice cream, but I save some of my melting ice for the walk. [Good thing it was sugar free as I would spill it repeatedly juggling my responsibilities for the next mile.]

DH got the trash run. Paddy, Scruffy and I headed west towards home as darkness fell.

At the mouth of the park we noticed a cyclist and young walkers. These were not ball game attenders. These were fishermen.

We moved into the field to allow the six young men by. We thought they would walk faster than we. And, of course, we wanted to eavesdrop.

We wanted to watch this bunch of boys....sweaty, dirty, silly boys who made us feel like we were in a Spielberg or Reiner flick about the bonds of boyhood friendship.

For the length of the steep hill we watched and listened. They caught no fish today. They waived their farewells and called their "See ya later"s as two stopped at the house at the top of the the hill and the others walked on, down the dark side street, and into my imagination.

My thoughts were of the hot summers long ago - sweaty, dirty kids riding bikes, climbing hills, wading in rain-filled ditches, catching turtles, feeling for crawdads with our feet....

The crickets and cicadas sang us home.