I never will forget those nights (and days)

I was out in public with friends the other night in a very loud place. The music these kids listen to today was annoying me anyway, but when I heard the familiar, sacred opening notes to "Boys of Summer" mixed into an insipid dance beat, I gasped. No, really. My face contorted into one not unlike the victims in "The Ring." Time went to slow motion as I spun around and my gaze settled on my friend Maria's, which was set in exactly the same expression as mine.

I know the kids, with their superstar producers, are mining the "oldies" for songs to sample or remake, because kids these days .... But don't mess with "Boys of Summer."

Seriously. They don't love boys of summer like I do, and I don't approve of their blasphemy.

I grew up in a small, Southern town that happened to be at the beach. My Sainted Southern Mother (SSM) took us out every day in the summers to burn off energy, and each day went a little something like this:

* My SSM would spend an hour preparing a picnic of sandwiches, Bugles and Coca-Cola products, herding the three of us into our bathing suits, then putting on the perfect finishing touches on her hair and makeup before loading us into the wood-paneled station wagon.

* Once we got to the beach, SSM would slather us down in the harsh 1970s sun creme I can still taste and feel stinging my eyes.

* SSM would set up the chairs and the food, then arrange herself delicately and attractively in the sun. (My mama was a knockout, btw.)

* One of us would take a bite of a sandwich, get a mouthful of sand, and start crying.

* While my SSM tended to the crying child, the other two waded out into the ocean and got carried a hundred feet eastward by the drift tow. As they bobbed up and down, one would inevitably get knocked over by a wave, scrape her face on the bottom and stagger out of the surf wailing from her near-death experience. And the other would get yelled at laughing at her sister's misery.

* Now with three crying little girls, my SSM would pack up the station wagon with its searing-hot vinyl seats and drive over the bridge back to our house. 

* Once home, my SSM would line her three daughters up in the backyard and spray them down with the garden hose before letting them in her house.

That's when we were small. I think it was around age 10 for each of us when my Sainted Southern Mother wised up and just dumped us off at the beach with our playmates for the day.

And that's when I started making friends with the summer kids from faraway places like Raleigh and Charlotte, whose families owned houses they only lived in during the school break. The ones my age all just happened to be boys.

We started out splashing around in tidal pools and digging up sand fleas. Before long, we were pirate twins in the dunes. We were absolutely fearless, with our skinny bodies tanned and our hair streaked blond. We ran races up and down the shore, our feet splashing in the salt water. We screamed our hearts out with glee out there on the beach, where nobody would admonish us for not using our inside voices, and we all whimpered and squirmed as our parents pulled us apart to go home for dinner.

Each school year started and we sent each other letters, counting down the days until school would be out for summer. I missed them so much during the winter, when there seriously was nobody on the road or beach.

We got older and started hanging out in the arcade, playing air hockey and Galaga, plugging quarters into the jukebox to hear Def Leppard over and over. Then, before we knew it, we were getting together after dark, sitting on the beach, listening to "The Boys of Summer" on a boombox, drinking wine coolers someone's older brother scored for us. The next summer, we were always piled up in someone's beater car with the windows down and sunroof open, riding up and down the island, the Cure blasting on the radio, elaborate 80s hairstyles getting ruined and feeling more young and alive than ever. 

We always ended up back on the beach, looking at the stars and wondering what life after school would be like. And we couldn't imagine that we'd ever be apart.

Then it ended, our childhoods on the beach. I moved away for college and never came home for good again, they became grownups who didn't vacation with their parents, and we all lost touch.

Still, all these years later, they will live in my memory as the boys of summer.

Don Henley |MTV Music

(for Bernard)