Seasons

Audubon Park was an amazing place for me. There was an open-air stage made to look like a Greek or Roman ruin, and that was close to the lagoon where they rented boats. A train ran all through the park and passed by the zoo.
The branches of live-oaks hung low to the ground...making it easy to slither up into the trees, and we boys played "king of the mountain" on a dirt mound called Monkey Hill.
The seals played in a huge pool and bellied up on a smooth rock island at its center. I wanted to be a seal and fought the urge to jump the fence to be with them...particularly during the summer.
And then there was a dreamy merry-go-round with lots of ponies all about...and mirrors reflecting the strung lights...and music, like syrup in the air.
Around and around....and with each round a chance to grab at a ring. I would stretch out far...had to have that ring....
I never slipped off my horse, but it was worth the gamble...the risk...
Each time around the urgency was there, but then the ponies would became still, the mirrors didn't catch as much light, and there was no more syrup in the air.....just children, some laughing....some crying as their parents took charge of them.
And when the carousel emptied, so did the desire I had for the rings I grabbed at.
Situations give things their value.
Many things I did as a child were associated with a particular season of the year...and they had a sweetness only then. When the season passed, so did the magic.
Mardi Gras is the ultimate example. Night after night...parade after parade, I would snatch and grab at the beads, trinkets and doubloons. It's a good thing my mother never found out the insane chances I took. But I filled my room with this treasure...sometimes grabbing handfuls of it...letting it run through my fingers. I was rich!
After Mardi Gras? Who knows what happened to it all? And it didn't matter, because the season was gone.
During the summer, it was marbles. I filled CDM coffee cans with the marbles I won shooting marbles with neighborhood kids.
In the spring, I collected baseball cards and flew kites.
The fall was the season for tops and a game called "spike".
War was muti-seasonal.
Kids would divide up into teams and gather up acorns, pine cones, chinaberries ....anything that could be thrown....and the war would begin.
I remember finding a whole mess of chinaberry trees...and filling bags with their fruit. But the berries rotted in the bag before I had a chance to use my stash. The season had passed.
Situations give things their value....but my mother didn't seem to understand this.
Once we got free tickets to the circus at the Municipal Auditorium. As we went in, the smell of popcorn was everywhere, and I threw some huge hints....more than once.
I can hear her, "Bobby, I can buy you enough popcorn to last you days and days for what it will cost for me to buy you one little bag here at the circus."
How could I tell her about the rings on the carousel...and Mardi Gras beads...and marbles and chinaberries.....?
How do kids explain to their parents about seasons?
Maybe seasons are something that parents have to remember about. They used to know about seasons when they were kids...but somehow, they forget.
I did.