Summer Sounds

When I was a kid, my brothers and I were always trying to come up with new ways to make old games more interesting. Usually this involved tools we weren't allowed to touch and heart attack inducing tree jumping. The heart attack being in my mother, not us. Sometimes we would ride our bikes up to the store to buy 35 cent sodas at Ace Hardware and baseball cards. We weren't baseball card enthusiasts in the slightest, we just wanted them for our bikes. I don't know who the first kid was who tested this out, but somewhere in history, some kid came up with this genius idea to stick baseball cards to the spokes of your bike rims. Going up hills there would be this soft thwap thwap thwap sound, in rhythm with your legs as you forced your way up, legs straining. With a devilish grin, we would turn around and zoom down again, the baseball card making zipping along. We were a motorcycle gang, each bike thrumming to the rhythm of their cards. Some kids even had three or four, making us the loudest gaggle of kids in the neighborhood. We went through a pack a week. That's how much we rode and new cards always made the best noise. I still ride a bike, although there is more ragged breathing up hills then there used to be. My bike is older, and despite numerous trips to the Bike Doctor and a heaping of oil, he (my bike) still makes a lot of noise. I know bikes aren't supposed to make the sounds that this one does, but it doesn't really bother me. I listen to the whir of my bike and I think, that is exactly how a bike should sound. My bike is singing in summer.

What are your sounds of summer?