Editor’s Letter: June 2014

I used to greet summer’s arrival with the same anticipation and fanfare I reserved for the ice cream truck. Three glorious months unfurled before me like a blank canvas, and it was my job to use the standard tools of boyhood—baseball bat and glove, bicycle jumps, a snorkel, model rockets, dangerous fireworks—to create something extraordinary. My career may have peaked on the Fourth of July when I joined a fellow 10-year-old in a successful bid to each eat a full-sized watermelon. Then I grew up. 

Nowadays summer registers in my life mostly as a slight improvement in my morning commute, and an increased frequency of the word “melanoma” in daily conversation. Which is why I don’t recommend growing up.

I do, however, recommend “How to Have a Blockbuster Summer”, a cover package that the Orange Coast staff approached with more than its usual enthusiasm. We saw it as a way to reconnect with the long-ago feeling when life was focused on seasonal eating, creative refreshment, casual amusement, reckless abandon, and the occasional rush of adrenaline.

We took as our inspiration the seminal Bruce Brown surf film “Endless Summer,” which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary and which we’ll be screening at Cinepolis on June 4. Enter to win one of 20 pairs of tickets here. We can’t think of a better way to celebrate Summer 2014, or for you to rediscover your inner 10-year-old. Cancel your appointments, kick off your shoes, and remember what summer is supposed to be.