Man, I loved summer when it was still summer. What summer rituals do you remember best?

The first, official day of summer will be Tuesday, June 21.

That seems odd. Summer begins on Memorial Day, right? When schools close and pools open. And it will end on Labor Day. When pools close and schools reopen.

Once, our calendar was easy to remember.

You remember summer, don’t you?

When June, July and August were spontaneous, adventurous, innocent, informal, carefree and never boring.

Summer was cutoff jeans, white v-neck t-shirts, tube socks and a pair of Chuck Taylors.

Summer was Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” vibrating the speakers of Mom’s gold Plymouth Valiant. It was a luxury car, though, to me because it had an FM converter mounted under the car radio and we could listen to KSHE-95, Real Rock Radio.

When summer was miserably hot and humid but a comfortably cool state of mind.

I am a late Baby Boomer. That makes me a member of the Luckiest Generation because I grew up in the best era ever for a kid. Safety. Security. Freedom. Spontaneity. Cheap gas. Outdoor concerts. No cell phones or phone cameras.

We had little but we had it all.

And we had summer.

When summer was summer.

On a recent summer day, although it wasn’t yet summer, I thought about summers past and tried to figure out when and why summer changed in my world.

Sure, weather’s evolution played a role. June has become an extension of spring. It’s wet, breezy and unpredictable. September is predictably hot, hazy and humid like a summer month. Our weather calendars have been pushed up one month.

Whatever happened to jorts? Nobody cuts off long pants into shorts these days. Summer once started on Memorial Day when you cut off the legs of your school pants into summer shorts. You could tell whose mom cut off the pants for her son because the cut was straight.

Summer changed when kids stopped riding bikes because their parents drove them everywhere. We rode our bikes in summer because nobody was giving us a ride. It was our only way to escape the backyard. And get away. Little rebels on a red Schwinn with a cool banana seat.

Summer changed when other sports overlapped into baseball season. Once, only baseball or softball were played in summer. Left field ball. Tennis ball. Whiffle Ball. We’d play ball if we had two or 22 players. And if it was only me, I’d grab my glove and a tennis ball and bank it off the carport wall, front steps or the side wall of the old Kinney Shoes Store on State Street.

Summer was watching the NBC Game of the Week every Saturday afternoon. Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. American League players like Al Kaline, Elston Howard, Boog Powell and Rocky Colavito. His name was so cool!

Summer was American Legion Hilgards baseball, and slow-pitch softball at every park in town, and fast-pitch softball at Southside Park. I’m sure softball is being played somewhere. But back when summer was summer, it was everywhere.

Summer was one-day trip to the St. Louis Zoo, and watching the old monkey show at least a couple of times. Or a family trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. We’d spend all day at the hotel’s tiny pool and all night at the batting cages in Dogpatch.

Summer was buying a rocket at the local hobby shop. Lift off! Darn. The neighborhood was out of power for a few hours only.

For the record, no one eats locust shells, in any country. Then and now.

Summer was the VP Fair held on the Gateway Arch grounds and Super Jam concerts at the old Busch Stadium. My ears never recovered fully.

Summer was an evening drive to SIU-Edwardsville for the Mississippi River Festival. The Eagles, The Who. Harry Chapin. Ozark Mountain Daredevils. What was most amazing about the MRF was that we always found our cars and way back home.

Summer ended on Labor Day. Last meal of summer was a slightly burned pork steak smothered in Maul’s barbecue sauce. Neighborhood men drinking a cold Falstaff from the Styrofoam cooler under the clothes line. Moms soaking up sun from their lawn chairs on the concrete slab in the backyard, the official patio of the 1960s.

Man, I loved summer when it was still summer.