When I was a young girl, I can remember those long hot summer afternoons that seemed to never end. No pool, air conditioner, or even fan to cool the house, on those endless summer days in 1970 Southern California. Wishing for rain, but in the years of drought, the asphalt would glisten with rainbow colors while steam rose from the molten tarred streets. You can fry an egg on that street, my mom would say, fanning herself inside the families 1955 Ford Farelane. That wonderful old car, with its built-in AM radio, and side vents to rush the outside air inside to act like a cooler. We’d make fans from notebook paper, cardboard or just about anything. Those hot days made only hotter by searching for discarded soda bottles, to be returned for 2cents for recycling. That was the summer of my big idea, that my mother promptly shot down as ridiculous. The girlscout in me, with the constant recycling of newspapers, cans and bottles, thought that it would be a great idea to place bins in peoples yards so they could discard their recyclables. All we had to do was collect them once a week. An idea in the 70s, by a young bright eyed girlscout, was shot down and ridiculed by her mother. Now this older woman sits and smiles, on a hot summer night rethinking of those lost opportunities so many years ago.

Tessa🦋