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WELCOME TO SUMMER! That's easy for me to say sitting in my air-conditioned office with a cold Diet Coke. It's another 100 degree day here in St. Louis. This time of year always conjures up memories of summers past when I was a kid - back when dinosaurs roamed, as my kids say.

Back then summer, especially August, meant a trip to the family reunion and getting to play with cousins I only saw once a year. It meant sweet tea floating a huge block of ice in a washtub and a dipper bobbing in a bucket of cool well water.It was porch swings and neat rows of white-washed trees. It was the snap of the screen door to grandma's back porch that always smelled of cucumbers in vinegar.

Summer meant open-air campmeetings and yellow "bug lights" around the concession stand. It meant meeting new friends to exchange letters with until next summer.

Summer meant "camping" in a quilt-over-the-clothesline tent and "pole vaulting" with mom's clothesline props. Sometimes it meant running to grab clean clothes off the line when a steamy summer day was interrupted by a welcome rainstorm. Summer was swinging as high as you can and playing outside until the lightning bugs arrive to claim the night.

Was it all good? Of course not. But it's funny how our minds selectively gather memories like picking only the loveliest flowers and leaving the dandelions. Oh, I haven't forgotten the bad. There were sweat bee stings and sandburs. There was sunburn and scars from cuts on bare feet. There was little escape from the heat and no air conditioning anywhere - at least nowhere my family ever went. Sleeping was miserable, even with open windows and monstrous window fans.

It's hard to believe that we actually lived that way. It was uncomfortable, but life went on. People went to work, did their household chores, and yes, even went to church. I can remember as a little girl the hot, sticky discomfort of bare little legs on an unpadded wooden pew; but I also remember the safe little alcove between my mom and dad and enjoying the remnants of a breeze from a funeral home fan.

Summer at church meant windows propped open with old songbooks. More than one sermon was punctuated with a bang when a window gave way and slammed shut. One of my fondest memories, however, is walking up the sidewalk toward the church house with my parents as the music wafted up into the night air through the open windows. "Let my life be a light, shining out through the night, let me help struggling ones to the fold; Spreading cheer everywhere, to the sad and the lone. Let my life be a light to some soul." Wow. What a beautiful sound!

This summer as we sit in our air-conditioned, almost hermetically sealed churches, let's remember that the only gospel some people may ever hear is the "song" of testimony that drifts toward them from our lives. Don't close the windows.

Have a Wonderful Summer!

Janice Crow

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