Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Memories of Hot Summer Nights

As I write this, it appears from my internet sources, that the Texas Rangers are leading the St Louis Cardinals three games to two in the World Series. There was a time when I kept up on such things. Especially in 1982 when the Milwaukee Brewers played in the World Series. I was in college at UW-La Crosse and the campus was in quite a frenzy.

Way before that though, there was a time when I was a kid and on hot summer nights we would listen to Brewers baseball on the radio.

On sticky August nights, with only one twelve inch round metal fan to cool the whole house, my parents wouldn’t turn on any lights, except for the single bulb above the kitchen sink. We didn’t own a blender, but Dad would dump milk, ice cream and Nestle’s Quik into one of mom’s white mixing bowls and whip it together with the hand-held electric mixer. With Bob Uecker and Merle Harmon announcing the play by play in the background, my dad would pour the milkshake into tall glasses that had a picture of a woman water-skiing on the side. The glasses had to be from the 1950’s because the woman wore one of those bathing suits with the pointy bra and long legs. Scary how vividly I can picture that in my head.

I think Mom still has those drinking glasses. I didn’t think to snap a photo of them, so here is my dad instead, circa 1977.

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