Summer Memories

    It’s rather hard to describe the smell of a tennis ball or the reasons why I like the smell so much. It just smells like . . . my childhood. It smells like home, as a matter of fact.

    My father would always take my sister and I to the tennis courts, rackets and a metal basket full of brand new tennis balls in the trunk of the car. His car always smelled of those fuzzy yellow balls that he kept in the car. Dad would practice his swings and hit the balls whenever my sister and I threw them at him, then afterward he would make it a game to collect them all. Person with the most points would win an extra scoop of ice cream. For a seven and five and a half year old on a hot California summer day, an extra scoop was what we always craved.

    My dad kept that old car, the one that always smelled of tennis balls for a long time. The familiar and nostalgic smell of dirty and the rubber base that would take me back to those summers with him. He gave me that car after I got my driver’s license as an early seventeenth birthday present. It was twelve years old at the time, but I didn’t care at all.

    Especially now . . . I try to keep the car in great condition to hold onto that memory of him. Whenever I drive that old thing, I would be convinced that he was really there with me. Whenever the scent started to weaken, I would go to the sports store and buy more tennis balls, dump them in the trunk of my car, and let it sit in there to regain it’s rubbery smell. You could say I have been having a difficult time admitting and accepting he was gone. And you’re right . . .

    My dad was my best friend. He taught my sister and I how to play tennis, even if we never got really into it. I always saw a different passionate side of him whenever he played tennis. I was so used to my dad The Performer. Whenever he ran on the court, I saw my dad The Athlete. A side of him that I knew I inherited. I looked up to him.

    I didn’t lose just a dad. I lost my friend.

    So for now, I’ll keep my car smelling like tennis balls. Like my dad. Like those many summers. I’m just not ready . . .