My Name is Summer, and Yes My Parents Were Hippies

People like to make fun of my name. As a temp, you meet people more than you normally would, and so I’ve been getting it more than usual in the last six months. "Summer?” One out of three will say, “Oh, well I'm Winter, nice to meet you!" Then they follow it with, "I bet you get that a lot." I humor them and smile and shrug it off, but after the third time in one day, I am thinking: Nah. YOU'RE THE GENIUS. Since it’s wintertime and very cold in New York, I’m often asked, “Why didn’t you bring summer with you?!” I am looking forward to the summertime, when a heat wave hits, and somebody says, “It feels like YOU out there.” How would you know, buddy?

Up until high school, I lived a relatively free from “winter” existence. Then again, I grew up in what I have learned since then, is considered an ALTERNATIVE environment. I went to a hippie school, and my classmates had names that included Andromeda, Boreas, Vitali, Oak, and Rolly (pronounced Role-e)(hi guys!). Considering the roll call, I was kind of the "Jane Smith" of the group. However, regardless of the pillows on the floor, and meetings where we had to discuss our feelings, I still got teased on the playground and called names. None of them were season-based. They were things that rhymed with my name--names that STILL make me cringe and feel bad. Names like "Bummer" and "Dumber." "Hey, Winter." Didn't come until I entered public school as a freshman. Then it was open season, so to speak.

If you opened my yearbooks, you would see (in all 4 years) that 90% of the entries end with "Have a good summer Summer (ha ha)." Sometimes the more creative types would write "Have the summer of summers, Summer (ha ha)."

My freshman year, the showcase model for the game show Sale of the Century was named Summer Bartholomew. If I had a dime for every guy in a Corona t-shirt that asked me, “Hey, are you related to Summer Bartholomew?” I wouldn’t have any college loans to pay off.

When I applied to colleges, I usually got two responses: one addressed to Pierre and the other addressed to Summer. I used to joke that Pierre got into college, but Summer did not. As it happens, in ALMOST all cases, neither did. (ha ha)

Then, I moved to the East Coast. East coast people find it a very funny name. This morning, as it would happen, two co-workers discussed my name in front of me, and one said, “I didn’t think it was your real name.” I get that a lot. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any hippies left here. I know the cultural consciousness happened on the east coast, because I’ve met people that had hippies for parents, but it seems that east coast hippies have moved on to academic postings or documentary filmmakers, and they seem to name their kids Amos or Noah, and not after seasons or other natural occurrences.

The good news about having a name like Summer is that people remember you. Or when they don't, they come up with the most interesting alternatives. I had a guy ask me once, "What is your name again--Sunshine?" SUNSHINE? Oh, it SO is now...

All said and done, I have to admit that I like my name. I know it fits me, as someone who is arty and who had hippies for parents. Incidentally, I knew a woman named Winter--she was my classmate Oak's mother. They lived on a commune with a kid who's real name was Cisco. In an act of wanting normalcy, Cisco declared in 3rd grade that his name was now DAVID. I hear he is on Wall street.

The point of this little tirade is that my friend Erica wrote to me yesterday and asked if I knew that the name 'Summer' was becoming popular. She had gone into a kid's store and saw all this merchandise with the name 'Summer' on it. Maybe it's the kid in me who watched with envy as every Rebecca, Jennifer, and Kathy got barrettes, mugs, lunchboxes, stickers with their lovely names on it, who wants to say to all the new Summers out there--LUCKEEE. The other part of me wants to say, GOOD LUCK. Then again, with an army of Summers out there, maybe they won't need it.