Summer

Ritz crackers. In their brown waxy tube of wrapping paper. On an old blanket with partly missing satin binding. On the grass in the sun by the sparkling water. The James River widened where it passed along the pasture and fields behind our house because there was a dam a few miles down stream. At the end of the road that was just two wheel tracks, the road with the two jogs in it, there was a slight bend in the river and a sand beach formed. We cousins would play in the cool water, while men ran boats and water skied and women sat on blankets and dispensed cool lemonade from spigoted coolers and Ritz crackers that made salty crumbs on our sandy legs. Summer IS Ritz crackers and lemonade and sand.