Summer. Lazy days when no alarm clock heralded wake-up time (with Emperor Gene Nelson on KYA, before FM was a thing).

We bicycled to the shopping center; few houses had been built along Alameda in Atherton. Mostly small ranches, a few horses grazing, our bike book baskets filled with carrots for them, and our lunches packed for impromptu picnics in someone’s pasture.

Tackle basketball was def a thing in our driveway court waiting for dusk to settle, then Tag til after sundown. Older kids TPed houses when younger ones were called inside. “Mrs. Inseth needs to borrow a couple of rolls, Mom.” Did Mom ever wonder why Isabel never repaid them?Did Isabel wonder why my mom didn’t either? Gary and I laughed, mischievous collaborators . Between the two moms we’d score a four pack. Often enough that I’m surprised neither provided the other with a gastroenterology referral.

We carefully chose bathing suits for summer trips to Berryessa, my HS bestie and me. We washed our hair with Clairol Herbal Essence in the glassy lake, then disturbed the calm with a blast across the water in a speedboat for a speed dry. First job was at the local drugstore, where the ice cream scoops were 15 cents and lunch was a tuna melt at the fountain.

Late August brought the heat and the boredom, essential ingredients in a proper summer. It was time to think about school again. Catholic school wool plaid skirts of green and gray in hot sticky JCPenney fitting rooms. Corona cigar boxes filled with new pencils and a faux tortoise shell fountain pen. Schaefer ink cartridges ready to do battle with my left-handed smear. There were new, stiff, blister-causing saddle shoes, always bright white with orange crepe soles. Couldn’t wait to ditch those, just in time for their fashion comeback in public high school. (There was a slight switch up though, tan and navy, with — orange crepe soles.)

High school brought new clothes and free dress. Bay Area summer starts in September, right about now. You gotta wait, it’s too hot to wear that dreamy new, pink cashmere sweater. I once took a chance. Turned out to be a 101° day.

Oops.

These were summers of my childhood.

A complete summer required completing all rituals. There can be no return to school without discharging the entire checklist. The first strains of “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do,” must be heard from a child before a PB&J can make its way onto sliced wheat, and into a brown bag. Aren’t we bound to a grocery store trek? Which chip assortment will get the place of honor in a September back-to-school lunch bag? Then there’s the first (and maybe only) prized treat of the school year, a Hostess hand pie, apple or berry, with a crackly glaze on its half-moon crust.

No summer is truly over until all siblings begin purposely aggravating the others because there’s nothing better to do. “I’m telling Mom,” “Mom, he’s looking at me!” An exasperated mother must blow a fuse and holler to her neighbor over a redwood fence, “I’ll be so glad when school starts! I can’t take the arguing anymore.”

Not on a bright, mid August day with summer in full swing should a kid be plucked from fun for confinement in a classroom. No books need be cracked while one more road trip and hotel pool beckons, no heavy backpacks slung across slumped seven-year-old shoulders before September shows on an old-fashioned paper calendar. With the sun still deciding if it’s set, daylight not fully dimmed, no bed should call a kid on break.

In the midst of squashed late summer rituals eschewed by adults with bad ideas, and the premature reinstatement of school, I hear distant squeals of summer joy, stifled. Summer demands a proper last hurrah. It is the rightful heir to the final few weeks of school-free days and late bedtimes.

Summer has been snatched away before Labor Day. A complete August violation.