Hearts on a Swing

On Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall is a life-size sculpture by George Lundeen called “Hearts on a Swing.” The young girl sits on a swing with a row of hearts carved on the backrest, with a small smile on her face. The girl on the swing looks a little like my younger sister Nell, and always reminds me of the summer more than 25 years ago when she came to live in Boulder for awhile. We lived down on the 600 block of Marine Street then and had a great front porch, with a swing. We would sit on the porch, play guitars, sing folk songs.

We were younger and freer, very carefree it seemed back then, before my children were born and while our family was still intact. One evening Nell and I strolled in the warm summer air down the street to a little grocery store to get some cherries and ate them on the way back to the house.

As we walked back, eating the cherries on the way, a porch full of young men called out, “Hey, ladies, will you share your cherries?”

“Gentlemen, please,” I replied in my driest voice. We walked on, laughing. I confess it felt good to be admired, even in so crude a way. I remember it as a good summer.