All Over Albany

Sixteen memories of summer

Last week we asked people about their favorite summer memory as part of the Fourth of July at Taste drawing. There were so many great little stories!

Reading those comments one of the highlights of last week for us. It was interesting see so many common themes from those memories -- ice cream, camping, fireflies, friends, road trips, playing in the dusk of a long summer day. And there were these special moments that people hold with them.

That was a long string of comments, and no one could blame you for not going through them all. But there were so many great stories shared that we wanted to highlight a handful of them. We think you'll enjoy these 16 memories -- and if you do, go skim through the rest of the comments.

It'll make you smile.

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In the summer of 1983 my father decided not to teach summer school. Instead, he and my mother drove me and my two older siblings across country in a 1975 Dodge Monaco station wagon towing a 22' trailer.

The drive was endless, but the destinations were unmistakeably American. On this trip I saw my first glimpse of herds of bison and prong horned antelope. We wound over the great Rocky Mountains and sprawled in the heat of Devils Tower. But my favorite moment was on a hike in Glacier National Park in Montana. There we were blessed with an up close visit from a mama mountain goat and two of her kids. The beasts were a mere 30 years away! Even at 9-years-old, I knew this was an extremely rare moment that I would forever treasure.

That summer, 6 weeks of traveling, I remember so many details like it was just yesterday. Every piece of it precious as gold.

-Alisa Costa

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My favorite summer memory was collecting fireflies in Mason jars underneath the grapevines with my elderly neighbor, Vivian.

-Shelley

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I'd have to say that the entire summer from 2005. I was home from college, 20 years old and working as a waiter in Saratoga. I went on a blind date for my buddy who was with the dates roommate. The date turned into one of those fantastic summer romances, equipped with sure-fire heartbreak at the end. Did it even rain that summer? I truly don't think it did.

-me neither

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When I was in maybe 1st grade, my grandma, mom and I went camping at a state park that we used to go to quite often.

We had a cookout one night and my grandma had made fresh green beans which she "shucked" behind the camper. After dinner we started a fire and sat around toasting marshmallows for s'mores. I wasn't feeling great so I had my little beach chair reclined so I was kind of laying down.

All of a sudden my mom says "Nobody Move! There's a skunk." And, don't you know, this little (or average size, I suppose) skunk came sauntering around the camper and into our fire circle. He proceeded to put his front paws up on the head of my beach chair and stick his nose in my face. Then we walked over to my grandma, who had just pulled her marshmallow out of the fire and had a s'more ready, and put his paws up on her leg and took a good whiff on her marshmallow. I guess we didn't have more of what he wanted (the green beans we guessed) so, he sauntered off in the direction he had come from.

When my mom finally said "Ok. He's gone." I screamed, cried and ran into the camper (Don't judge. I was little.) and refused to come out for the rest of the night.

It may sound like a not so awesome summer memory but, it's a story that we can all laugh about now and one that's fun to share.

-Cassie

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Summer vacation when I was a kid meant playing cops and robbers on our bikes throughout the neighborhoods in Delmar, with a popsicle in hand.

-Sara E.

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Last summer; it's the night before my mother's second cancer surgery.

But none of that matters.

Because for the first time that year, everything just feels -- right. The surgery is the next day. That night, though? I'm sitting on the swing in my parents' backyard, they're watering the plants; we're eating outside, we're singing songs. We're not letting cancer get to us, because it's summer, and things are mostly otherwise good, and everyone is home. Everyone is together. And the music's playing, and the song is good.

A year later, that moment rings in me every time I need something to make me smile. That moment before facing frightening odds when we all just let go and had the best damn summer night we could.

-Rue

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Giving birth to my first son after 47 hours of labor, on July 4th.

-Caroline

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1986 Relighting of the Statue of Liberty. I was living on Governors Island at the time and everything that was going on seemed so exciting. Got to meet President Reagan, Kenny Rogers walked through my apartment building, and even though I couldn't go to the concert, I could hear it from my apartment.

Not to mention there was a mobile Burger King truck, which my friends and I loved. And my dad scored jelly bellies with the presidential logo on them!

-Rochelle

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A moment during a drive home with my husband, all the way from South Carolina. It was our honeymoon and we were cruising back from Myrtle Beach in a rented Mustang convertible. The top was down, the moon was up, and from every direction came the overwhelming scent of jasmine growing wild on the roadside. A perfect night.

-kizzi

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Mr. Ding-a-ling was easily the most popular person in my neighborhood. We could hear his music blocks away and we'd go running in all directions to beg our parents for money. I had this old Fisher Price recorder player that played the same exact song the Ding-a-ling did. So sometimes I would sneak onto my front porch and set wind up the record player. All the kids would get excited, it was like Pavlov's Dog.. I would just sit back and watch. Eventually I revealed my trick, but not before soaking in the enjoyment of finally being the one to pull something over on the older kids.

-shannon

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Fireworks shows courtesy of my dad and his "friend with an aunt in South Carolina."

-Jesse

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I was sitting in a bunk with 4 of my closest camp friends. We were telling stories and to this day I don't think that I've laughed as hard as I did with them. We were about 12 years old and still telling fart jokes. I remember thinking, life can't get better than this...why do we have to get married? I just want to live and be with my best friends laughing like this forever.

-Lana

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Hanging from a rope halfway down a 300' escarpment chopping fossil mammoth ivory out of permafrost with an axe. best summer job ever!

-Heywood

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When I was 18, I spent July soldering in a factory, then August driving around the country in a teal Mazda Protege. Crust punk fest in Wisconson, cattle ranch in Nebraska, hippy buses and hot springs in Colorado, and sleeping in an awesome shrubbery dome in Golden Gate park for a week.

... said rana

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Perhaps the night I had my first kiss - out on the boat dock of the lake at which my family was camping, with the boy whose family owned the camp store. It was one of those perfect summer nights and he took me out to sit and "watch the stars" but every time we would start to snuggle a little closer, we would be disturbed by a fisherman or people from a different campsite. It's amusing in retrospect. I think we sat on 4 or 5 different docks before we were alone long enough for him to work up the nerve to kiss me, but I did eventually get to see stars.

-julie

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My favorite summer memory is of laying on the top of a mountain in Iceland with my best friend, at midnight, in the twilight, on this crazy bed of moss that must have been a foot thick. There was this pristine lake up there, and everything was completely silent, and we took off our shoes and did somersaults for like an hour before hiking back down and eating rhubarb crumble.
I miss Iceland.

-M.

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And there were many more...