Rock and roll all night

Hot summer nights make me think of Dad and the humid evening I introduced him to Gene Simmons.

My friends and I were addicted to KISS, the band in which Simmons dresses like a demon, breathes fire, spits blood, and wags his serpent-length tongue.

There was no Youtube, Netflix, social media or on-demand TV, so we relied on their record covers and jackets, teen magazines and the actual music to fuel our fandom. We couldn’t access info or videos instantly so were forced to use our creativity and imaginations to talk about KISS, envision their live performance and simply love the band.

One summer evening — back in the days when summers lasted forever —we were cooling off with soft drinks in my folks’ backyard when I decided to channel Gene.

I took a gulp of cream soda, but didn’t swallow it. Instead, I pretended to spit blood like Gene by slowly letting it drain out of the corners of my mouth.

My friends laughed hard and seemed to think it was cool — a reaction I relished then (and still do).

When the cream soda was gone, I ran into the house, grabbed a bottle of ketchup from the fridge and repeated what I had done with the soft drink, taking a swig of ketchup and slowly squeezing it out the corners of my mouth. It rolled down my chin and all over my T-shirt.

My friends lost it and were howling with happiness so I kept doing it over and over, feeling cooler, feeling the thrill of an audience like Gene Simmons might.

Then Dad happened upon on the scene. And I can only imagine how it looked to him. His pre-teen son was standing in the middle of a group of friends, Tshirt stained cream soda pink and ketchup red, drinking Heinz because there were no other kinds, spitting it out and singing, “God of thunder, and rock and rooollllll ...”

I’ll never forget the puzzled expression on his face. My dad, who passed away in 2013, could be really strict or really silly, a side he seldom showed my friends. After a few seconds of bewilderment, he sternly told me to put the ketchup back in the fridge. He didn’t have to tell me twice. My friends scattered.

In the grand scheme, this silly incident is even less important than dryer lint. There were no major life lessons learned or impact on anyone or anything.

However, reflecting on it does show the tremendous power of a warm summer night, the closest thing we have to a time machine.

Thankfully, we’ve been having lots of those enchanting evenings in recent weeks, allowing the experiences of simpler, youthful times to flow.

That’s also driven me to try and take advantage of the weather and create more memories (but with trips to swimming holes or through socializing, and not involving ketchup).

I hope you’ve been able to make more lasting summer memories too.

To quote “Game of Thrones” — winter is coming.