and when I was four years old, I was the Queen . . . of Summer.
Mom and Dad had the audacity to create an oasis in the middle of the Great Plains (Wichita, Kansas) and to name it "LaGuna Beach".
A huge, sand-bottomed lake, surrounded by golden beaches and clattering cottonwood trees.
Angled turquoise corrugate shade shelters all around. High dive, zip line, rope strung with vividly painted wooden buoys separating shallow from deep. Cute lifeguards, including my 18 year old brother.
Mom and Aunt Blanche wore Catalina wrap-aaround swimsuits and rubber thong sandals while serving up scrumptious pulled-pork barbecue sandwiches on soft Rainbow buns, fresh iced-tea and all kinds of frozen candy bars (the white Zero bar was my favorite). I could stand on tip-toe, dip the cold metal scoop down into the shaved ice and pull up a cupful any time I wanted. Oh, and there was soda on tap. Did I mention hot-dogs?
Later in the evening, when most of the guests had packed up their beach-bags and headed home, the place was all mine. Mom and Dad and friends would be in the back of the concession stand playing cards and laughing. I would sit on a picnic table and watch the stars light up and twinkle across the cottonwood leaves. Listen to the lapping of waves (it's windy out there in southern Kansas) on the shore.
Eventually, I'd take my little terry-cloth clad self over to the open-air dance pavilion, also painted aqua (as were the bath houses). The cement floor was partially polished (stopped in mid-task as mom and dad realized that wet feet and slick floors might not be a good match), and there was a friendly, pot-bellied juke box at one end. We, of course, had the key to it. Meaning I could play music, A7; C3; D9, and dance to my heart's content.
When I tired of that, I'd wander into the back end of the concession-stand house where the folks were hanging out. There were always cots in there because we often spent the night. And, I generally fell asleep to the sweet lullaby of affable voices and my mom's luminous laughter.
This was my normal.
Sounds like I made it all up doesn't it. Well, I didn't. This is factual. My mom and dad -- THEY made it up . . . then made it real . . . then sold "season passes" and spread the fantasy around.
While making money (sort of an afterthought, it seems).
So, this is my expectancy. My baseline. Summer is a country. And I am its queen. And every single year of my life, I feel it. I love swimsuit cover-ups, beach balls, flip-flops, barbecue pork kept hot in the slow-cooker with onions, shaved ice, tree leaves shimmering under the stars, dancing, and sandy bare feet.
LaGuna Beach. Proof that the material world is much more malleable than conventional thinking would have us believe. That beauty is harnessed in the great unmanifest -- just waiting to run rampant. And that my mom and dad were magicians who loved each other like crazy.
(postlude)
Many years later, the City annexed the land and plotted a Landfill there. Dad went around town and got enough petitions to shut that down. The land is now part of "Sedgwick County Park."
The lake glistens and sways in the wind, those big old cottonwoods continue playing their rapturous tunes. And, guess what? The dance floor is still there! My sister and I recently found it as we trudged off-path to get up close to the lake.
And it is still half polished.
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LaGuna Beach Legacy; Jeannie Hund Jackson
