Finding a wave for an endless summer

Many American generations are defined by their music. The tunes, melodies and lyrics that spoke to their hearts and hormones at a younger age. My parents had Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Hoagy Carmichael and a very hip Cab Calloway. Their younger siblings  had Bill Haley and the Comets and the trio – Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper – whose short-lived legacies live on beyond a plane crash.  

Growing up in Evansville, Indiana, in the mid-1960s there was so much music exploding we embraced because of their newness and variety: Beatles, Dave Clark 5, Rolling Stones, Hollies and novelty bands such as Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs and Paul Revere and The Raiders (featuring Mark Lindsay on vocals).  A few guys named Hendrix and Clapton were slowly evolving.

At the same time, another brand of music was coming into play. If you are a guitar freak like me, The Ventures rings a bell -- an instrumental group whose Wipeout and Walk, Don’t Run, rippled sweetly with twanging Stratocaster riffs. They nudged listeners  toward the warm California sun.

But early in on the game came a group of fellows which brought it all into focus: The Beach Boys. Living in the heart of Midwest, we didn’t have many opportunities to stray from our neighborhoods and city limits. Yet, we understood.

Round, round get around
I get around! Yeah!
Get around round, round I get around
I get around…(Insert Brian Wilson’s falsetto)
Get around round, round I get around,
From town to town

I’m getting bugged driving up and down the same old strip,
I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip…

Most of the kids I rode around with drove cars which barely could beat a three-wheeled Pinto in a 40-foot drag. In fact, most of these wheel-masters seemed to be happy enough to cruise the local Burger Chef on 30-cent-a-gallon gas. 

Although The Beach Boys had a full range of music, another  tune made most of us wonder far beyond the borders of Indiana. We quickly understood the hip styles of the East Coast girls; the drawling voices of Southern girls which knocked us out; the smooching Northern ladies; and the way Midwest farmers’ daughters could make us feel all right.

At the time, I didn’t digest what they were entirely getting at. Most girls I knew tanned below the shoulder and slightly below the knee. But one message was clear: The greatest wish was that they could all be California girls. The lyrics were pure: They made both genders think and dream of other places beyond the chunky sandbanks of the Oho River. 

Surfs up, let’s catch the next great wave, y’all! And may we all find endless summers in all of our seasons.