Another thunderstorm today. Two in the afternoon and dark as past sunset. Then the thunder. It's soothing, a low rumble in the background slowly drawing nearer, getting louder. Almost hypnotic.

Loud, loud peals of thunder now. No lightning flashes that I can see from here. Just pouring rain, a heavy soaking downpour that has driven all the neighborhood children inside on the after-school start of a 3 day national holiday here. Not to belittle the memories of those whose sacrifices are the basis of this holiday, but we know the real meaning of this holiday here. It's the start of summer. The start of the slide towards the end of the school year, summer vacation.

When I was a small child this was the time of year when suddenly great towers of neatly folded linens would appear in the bedrooms to air in the breeze from opened windows. Closets would be turned out, storage boxes unpacked of all the summer wear. Then in a flash, a few days later, it would all disappear and huge steamer trucks and barrels would start to line the hall and block the pathways from the bedrooms. Next morning they would disappear; once I woke up very early, before dawn perhaps and discovered my dad wrestling a barrel down the front stairs and into an open truck. The back of the truck, boards for sides, no roof, was filled with trunks and crates and barrels.

All returned to normal then for the few remaining weeks of school. Finally, on the last Friday in June, the last day of school arrived. I, along with all the other noisy throng of children, went running home with my report card, proudly shrieking that I'd been promoted.

The next morning, Saturday, we'd be woken early, helped into play clothes and given a rushed breakfast. A loud honking from the street would stop everyone in their tracks and produce a sudden parental frenzy of activity. Then I'd remember, it's time to go to Spring Valley for the summer. Away from the sweltering heat, away from the dreaded polio epidemics. And we'd run to the hack waiting outside to take us north to a cool green valley with apple orchards, where my mother and grandmother would make vast cauldrons of applesauce and I'd sit with my grandfather on an old stone wall by the side of the road, waiting for the occasional car to go by and we'd shout KALAMAZOOO!!! at it as they passed.

I'm sitting at my laptop now, years later, it's pouring rain outside and thundering. Spring Valley is now a crowded commuter suburb north of New York City. It's dirty and noisy and has crime and heavy traffic. The apple orchards are long cut down for tract housing. The little rural 2 lane road is now Route 59, many lanes wide, a major highway through the country. Gone are the stone walls lining its length, gone are the apple farms, the chicken farms, the family farms with a vegetable stand by the side f the road. Now it's lined with huge malls, outlet stores, auto dealerships.

There's a thunderstorm here and I can still hear my grandfather shouting KALAMAZOO in the distance.