Tonight, I’m thinking of the warm summer nights of my boyhood riding in my dad’s 59 Chevy pickup. Mom and dad were up front. My brother and I rode in the back seated in the truck bed. It was a Friday night ritual heading into town to get broasted chicken and milkshakes. 

Dwain and I tossed pebbles at passing mailboxes, told tall boy-tales and dreamed of cute girls. The warm summer air bathed our faces as the truck moved through the night. The clear sky above was filled with bright stars. The hot night air passing across our young faces set the thermostat for our dreaming young minds. It was white t-shirt weather, a 501 Levi’s and black hi-top Chuck Taylor period of life – a time of innocent simplicity. 

The memories of those warm summer nights were given to me as a gift to store away and be recalled toward the end of my life as a reminder of what’s important. Those memories remain as tender today as they were many years ago when first experienced riding in the back of dad’s pickup on a warm California summer night.