I have always been a evening person. There is something about the eventime that puts me in a more relaxed, yet lively mood. All the heat and monsters of the day have disappeared. When I was young my days could be populated by bullies, and running and dodging them was hot, sweaty work; but when the sun goes down they cannot get to me. People slowed down in the evening, due to having completed their work for the day, the adults relax and are easier to approach, especially if after a couple of cocktails. Everyone older than me always seemed cooler, more interesting, smarter, prettier, when the sun was going down, the shadows lengthen due to the sun lowering towards the horizon, the colors deepen. The green of the lawns darkens and softens, the blue on lakes and oceans turns from robin's egg to cyan. The heat of the day cools down to a softer ambiance, making riding my bike less of an exercise in sweltering heat than a cooling bath in softer, cleaner air. Radios would be heard from car and house windows, playing the Top 40 hits, or the blessed harmonious voice of Vin Scully broadcasting a Dodgers game.

With the shrinking of daylight comes the attendant darkening and lengthening of the human spirit; secrets that could not be whispered in the bright light of noon will be bandied between mouth and ear, I know of what I speak. Group games, consisting of neighborhood kids would last on, after a rushed dinner, until our mothers would come yelling for us to come inside, take a dreaded bath and then be confined to our beds until the process begins again with the rising sun. Many was the time when I would beg and plead to stay up later because, "Its still light out!", only to be denied again due to my age ("I cannot wait until I am old enough to stay up until 9!").

As I got older and was able to stay up later, past the bright demarcation of 9pm, I would take long bike rides and walks, thru the neighborhoods, as the evening's gold and reds would fade into dark blues and black. I would often make my route go past the house of a girl that I was in love with, on the very off-chance that she would be out in the yard; in such a way we would have some kind of accidental encounter wherein she would discover my inherent heroism and goodness and then fall in love with me, and we would live out our days in loved bliss. At least that's what played out in my imagination; reality was never so accommodating, as these chance encounters never happened in a way that satisfied my un-named and misunderstood longings. I also liked to look at the different houses and wonder what kind of life was being lived behind the closed doors and windows; were they happy, sad, in love, in rage? As much as I wanted to be the fly on all of their walls, I never took steps to spy, as that was a line that I could never cross, as afraid as I was of not only being caught, but the consequences of being apprehended loomed so large in my mind as to crowd out any desire for mischief.

I always wanted to be walking with my love, in scented gardens, under cool tall trees by babbling streams, glinting bright in the evening sun, smiling at her, her smiling back. That it only happened once was a source of embarrassment and disappointment, as much as I wondered how to make it happen I could never hit upon the magic formula for success.

Now that I am so much older that those days, with rivers of time having passed between me then, and me now, I remember those days with gold-tinged nostalgia, for the bright innocence of youth and a smile for the amount of pure fun I had. I still very much enjoy the evenings, but now as an adult I get to spend them in many ways denied to me as a youth, specifically relaxing over cocktails on the veranda of a dockside restaurant, crunching thru the snowy woods in my snowshoes, or even, taking simple walks and listening to the wind sighing thru the trees. Evening is still my favorite time of the day.