By Judge Dale Tipps, Murfreesboro

Today is the summer solstice. What are the popular “beach reads” this year?

While I’m always interested in what’s new and trending on the bookstore shelves, several years back, I made a habit of reading “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury at the beginning of every summer. 

Bradbury somehow managed to capture how important summer became to me once I started school. I even insisted that my oldest kid read it with me one year. It didn’t go down the same path with the younger one, although I don’t remember why. Well, that’s just not true. I think I just got too old or too busy to pay attention to magical things like pie crusts, sandwiches eaten outdoors, and tennis shoes.

The magic was always in the new pair of shoes.

Somehow the people who made tennis shoes knew what boys needed and wanted. They put marshmallows and coiled springs in the soles and they wove the rest out of grasses bleached and fired in the wilderness. Somewhere deep in the soft loam of the shoes the thin hard sinews of the buck deer were hidden. The people that made the shoes must have watched a lot of winds blow the trees and a lot of rivers going down to the lakes. Whatever it was, it was in the shoes, and it was summer.

Well, he felt sorry for boys who lived in California where they wore tennis shoes all year and never knew what it was to get winter off your feet…

Bradbury understood. And God help me, I somehow forgot.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was saved. By Facebook, of all things.

Let’s return to 1966, when I was in kindergarten. There were two kinds of kids: those who wore Keds, and those in PF Flyers. By today’s standards, the shoes weren’t sophisticated, or even very different. But the debates (and foot races) raged daily over which brand was better.

I was in the PF Flyer camp for good reasons. First, it said right on the box, “Run Faster, Jump Higher.” I mean, that constituted a guarantee, right—an enforceable contract? Also, Jonny Quest wore them on his Saturday morning cartoon, and when you bought a pair, you also got his P.F. Magic Ring with decoder dials and a magnifying glass. Either they were on sale, or I whined enough to get my folks to buy me a pair of All Americans, and my life was complete.

But again, I somehow forgot these important details until some obscure Facebook algorithm decided I was ripe for an ad for PF Flyer low-tops. I didn’t have to whine, and I didn’t care if they were on sale. And when I tried them on a few days later, I laughed out loud. And I still smile every time I see them in the closet.

I don’t think I’ll run faster or jump higher with them. In fact, I’m not interested in trying. But putting them on is like time travel, or at least a phone call from the kid I once was. And I feel summer.

What are you reading this summer? And here’s hoping everyone finds a little summer magic this year.