Probably it was the latter. I have no trouble with "Sumer," "icumen" and "cuccu." However, I'd like to think of "lhude" as "loud," rather than a phonetic spelling of "lewd." Can't tell what those cuccus—or cuckoos—might be up to, though. They should stick to their clocks.

Anyway, it's the thought that counts, and sumer—or summer—is indeed a-coming in, even if it has been getting off to a rather slow start. All this conjures up memories of Saratoga summers in the time of my childhood and youth, and we're talking 1930s here. Back then the fruit harvest was a dominant summer theme for a lot of people around here. As for the kids, it usually meant cutting apricots during the early part of the season and picking prunes during the late summer. There even was a time when the fall opening of school was determined by the prune harvest. The kids were needed in the orchards.

Most of the prunes and apricots around here were sun-dried, which meant setting them out in trays on a level field. The other drying method involved dehydrators, where the trays were rolled on little cars into a kind of oven. Dehydrators took only a fraction of the space needed for sun drying, allowing for more trees. I did my 'cot-cutting gigs at the Walter Worden ranch, now the location of Saratoga High School. The cutting shed was close by Saratoga Creek and the drying yard—we called it the dry yard—was up against a bluff. 'Cot-cutting was work, but it had its recreational aspects. The trays at which we stood were fairly close together, and one could keep up a running conversation with friends. There was always a lot of good-natured joshing, and workers could engage in "duels" to see who was the faster cutter.

There wasn't much of a recreational aspect to picking prunes, however. Late August and early September usually rated as the hottest time of the year. Picking was hands-and-knees labor, and the ground, though it may have had a harrow run over it, was rough. Kneepads were a good idea. But it was a job at a time when jobs weren't all that easy to find, and most kids needed, or at least wanted, to earn money.

Any reminiscing about Saratoga summers of this period would have to include Dorothea Johnston's Theatre of the Glade, which was a prominent feature of community life from 1934 to 1941. Dorothea was the daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Johnston, who managed the Saratoga Inn, a gracious hostelry on Saratoga Avenue that opened in 1912 and lasted almost 50 years. The name is commemorated in the Saratoga Inn Place condominiums.

Behind the inn buildings, the property dropped off in an embankment, becoming a level segment that extended to the creek. It was a perfect setting for an outdoor theater. Even with the construction of a swimming pool in 1937, there was adequate room for several hundred spectators, who sat facing the embankment and the terraced playing area.

The first Glade production was Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1934, with the role of Puck played by Olivia de Havilland, who had graduated that June from Los Gatos High School. Although she had a scholarship to Mills College, she never went there. Hollywood intervened.

I pretty much cut my teeth on Shakespeare at those Glade productions. My first "role" was in 1935 in As You Like It. At the time, I had this laryngeal quirk that enabled me to imitate bird calls, so I was back in the bushes making wildlife sounds for the Forest of Arden. I also carried on the sign announcing scene locations. In later years I graduated to minor roles, sometimes even involving a few lines, in Romeo and Juliet (1938); A Midsummer Night's Dream reprise and Merry Wives of Windsor, both 1940. In looking back, I value those experiences because, although I may not have appreciated it at the time, I got to hear those classic lines repeated over and over, and they made an impression. That's how you get to dig Shakespeare.

Sumer is icumen in. Lhude sing the Bard.