Summer is not my favorite time of the year. I am not built for the heat. Fall? That’s when I shine. Summer reminds me that Fall, and more importantly, Halloween, are on their way. Yet, Summer is still a time that does fill me with happy memories, in the way that Summer is intrinsically linked with childhood. That blessed break between school years, the Saturdays spent going to the movies, and summer vacations with family.
The heat, particularly this overbearing, downright oppressive kind we’ve been experiencing lately, reminds me of one thing in particular. The humble slip and slide. It never mattered how much you kept watering the length of vinyl material laid out in your back yard, if you had that thing out under the hot July sun for more than an hour, it’d be hot and you’d quickly go from “Oh, this is fun” to “Oh, this is rather uncomfortable.”
Not that it ever mattered. You’d hose it down and slide again. We were feral kids in the age of the pre-internet world, then even as the internet began, it was still something that stayed in one location in your home and turned off when you were done with it. Something I miss sometimes. Seeing what the promises and hopes of the internet have turned into is something that those of us who remember when it was a wonderland of awe find rather depressing.
The king of the ‘90s kid slip and slide was, without question, Crocodile Mile. I didn't have one, but a friend in the neighborhood did. The commercial was a staple of breaks between “Rugrats.” and "Double Dare." It wasn’t anything super special, but the ad made it seem all the more exciting. It had that cache of cool that meant if you had it, you had arrived in the kid world. What made Crocodile Mile different from other, pedestrian slip and slides, was what it had at the end of the slide.
It was a long stretch of blue vinyl. But at the end was a sliced curtain that had a cartoon crocodile with his mouth open. Just after that was a little air pillow “bump” which would send you upwards just a bit so you’d make a nice big splash into the shallow pool behind the curtain. I was never the most coordinated child, nor am I the most coordinated adult human person. So despite the simple instructions of “run, slide, splash,” I’d sometimes not quite get it right.
I’d run just fine, but my over/under on the slide part is what was tricky. Sometimes I’d get it right and splash down just perfectly. But more times than not, I’d get off angle and wind up moving to the right or left on the slide. This meant that sometimes I wouldn’t even make it down to the crocodile. I’d fling myself off and wind up landing just before it in the dry grass. Which isn’t fun as then you’d have to stop and hose yourself off from all the blades of grass that would stick to your torso.
The most embarrassing one, however, is the one that sometimes haunts me on those nights when I can’t sleep so I think of every embarrassing thing I’ve ever said or done. It was another turn at Crocodile Mile on a day where I had lost count of how many times I had slid on the thing. I had just cooled myself off with a Capri Sun and off I went to run. The running was fine, the landing, was fine. I was even mostly in the right direction.
Then it hit me. Literally. My trajectory was off just enough that when I slanted to the right I crashed smack dab into the side of the rods which held up the little curtain. My body twisted sideways and I sort of slid through the curtain into the splash pool, taking it down with me as I landed. There were mostly laughs, no one rushed to see if I was fine, if I had injured myself on a Crocodile Mile slip and slide I would have had to move and never speak to anyone again.
But still, sometimes on these hot days, I think of how nice it would be to maybe throw some uncomfortable, hot vinyl sheeting out in the backyard and see how I could do today. I don’t know that I’d be any better, but at least I won’t have a curtain at the end to worry about crashing into. Happy Summer, see you next week.
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