What Do I Miss About Summer on the East Coast?

Real summer days at the beach. 89, humid, and you can't wait to jump into 78 degree water where there's surf (but no Maverick's waves), and no great whites.

Every other day: the pool. Laying on grass, listening to the same soft rock station play the same songs every day, and it's okay. Because a summer day where you don't swim is a day wasted.

Crab houses. Places where everybody is just fine with relaxing and being middle class and not worrying about the rest of the people in the restaurant, because frankly no one is even thinking about all that.

Yuengling.

Real food. Pizza, Italian sandwiches, and cheesesteaks. And funnel cakes. And Turkey Hill iced tea. And Tastykakes.

Real boardwalks, with well-behaved families and kids busting their asses selling french fries and pinball machines that look like they were there when your grandfather was chasing your grandmother (and guess what, they probably were).

Thunderstorms; the smell of the earth five minutes before the rain comes, and the sound of the first sheet of it approaching through woods so green they stain your retinas.

At night: frogs and katydids and lightning bugs.

And the strangely joyous urgency of having to get all this in within 14 short weeks, until the return of football and school and falling leaves.