1 month ago
18
There was a time when I used to hate summer. I was in my early 20s, with inflamed skin, and in a band. So I railed against it and those who worshipped it lyrically.
They sit by the calendar, peeling off days as the sun rises higher,
Ready to offer their flesh in a yearly salute to its fire …
Summer would mean disguising the irritated flesh with jeans instead of shorts. In later years, every autumn the pox would move around the body in an annual migration, to flare in new places and ebb in old, in haphazard degrees of severity. Some summers meant long sleeves. The Celtic Curse.
Verse one ends in a clunky rhyme with “sucks” and “bucks”, unworthy really of noting again. I’m sure I mentioned I was in my early 20s.
Early morning at Wanda beach.Credit: John Veage
And the chorus would go:
I can’t wait, for summer to end, end,
I can’t wait, for summer to end, summer to end, summer to end …
The second verse would start:
The car park at Wanda is choked with exhaust and the smell of the sea,
I know that it’s the one place in the world that I don’t want to be,
The heat is shimmering off the street, I forgot my thongs, and now I’m burning my feet …
Mike Dalton (second from right) with his Trilobites bandmates in 1987.Credit: Ian Greene, Unicorn Management
We grew up on Wanda, the car following from where the arterial bitumen split, then thinned, lancing through to the bay. If waves weren’t an issue we’d drive to Bundeena along the hook of road through the national park, to then walk to Jibbon. But mostly Wanda. Many days there. Bonfire nights. Before the Celt arrived each year. A sunrise waking up, encircled by graduating students on the same sands, occasional small pools nearby of Blackberry Nip vomit amid the spent cartridges that had packed alcohol.
But then the pox would leash me from summer, binding me indoors, so severely it would flail both skin and mind. Limbs coated in crackling.
The loudspeakers blare to the dullest collection of music that’s hip …
True. Croaky old green speakers strapped to telegraph poles running near the Wanda surf clubhouse would grind out a hiss of tinnitus that was allegedly 2SM, then the powerhouse of teen pop. It took only the mildest of breathy days for the noise to blow around like a flag.
... the clubbies in action as some bronze medallion gets caught in a rip …
A little artistic licence there, as bronze medallions could well be clubbies, but the line rolled out of the mouth well.
… the ice cream that dissolves in your hand,
congeals at the bottom of your feet in the sand …
... well, summertime is not the time for me …
Repeat chorus, guitar solo, third verse.
One thousand styrofoam boards become missiles as dumpers roll in,
The white wash that reaches the shore, tainted red with the slash of a fin …
More licence taken but an acknowledgement of the culture at the time. Kentucky Fried Chicken surf planks were a feature of summer’s late-’70s beach horizon, as much as puka shell necklaces and Tracker surf shirts. Concessions must be made for one never seen drawing blood, but chest and thigh rashes from them were endemic.
Verse three ends with sunburnt children, singeing car seats and an effort to align “tot” next to “hot”, which strangely proved to have no strength when sung.
Mike Dalton in the band Bahne Super-Flex, playing at the Marrickville Bowlo. Credit: Glen Morgan Photography
Harmonies and a double snare beat bring it home.
Peace would eventually, eventually be made with summer. Its remedial applications proved worthy when science did not. Summer proved to help keep away the Celt but still the scaly swallows of autumn’s migration will return. It is with resigned pragmatism, rather than with grateful relief, that the end of summer is now greeted.
Mike Dalton is features reporter with Nine News Sydney and “still occasionally yells with other old men” in ’70s covers band Bahne Super-Flex.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
