"What did you use as a water park when you were a kid, Dad?"
A water park? We were lucky to have running water, I thought.
But instead I answered, "A fire hydrant," as I was about to be splashed silly by a 75-gallon container of water. But my second-grade daughter, who had lured me into this modern-day equivalent of Noah's Ark, showed her smarts when she stepped aside at the last minute to watch her father flounder about, with water, water everywhere — in his eyes, his ears, his nose, his memories.
What was wrong with that old fireplug anyway?
The very idea of a hydrant serving as a summer's highlight was alien to my daughter. In a battle of the ages — a 6-year-old and her 60-year-older dad— I didn't want to cross the finish line as some mopey old fogey drenched in flop sweat — even if it was not sweat but more water than Moses could raise a staff to.
As for the biblical references, let my memories go!
No, not yet.
Maybe the siren song that is summer could still be heard by a new generation — if it only could penetrate their earphones.
"What's Mister Softee?" my daughter puzzled as I went on and on about the music that was a kid's summer muse, drawing kids away from the double-feature, Monopoly, even Howdy Doody, with its Pied Piper promise of soft swirls of chocolate and vanilla reaching the sky.
She turned to my wife for an explanation. "Mister Softee? Just Daddy going soft in the head," offered my wife, patting me on the noggin, where those memories were bursting to get out.
What could be the appeal of common custard to a kid who could go down to the corner ice cream store and create confections of her own choosing by pulling a lever of 30 flavors, then dousing the creation in a thousand candies and toppings?
Jack and Jill didn't just roll down a hill; they were pushed by technology.
After all, the kids next door could coax me with their sing-song "Can you come out and play?" using the enticement of a game of wireball. My daughter's friends email her and come wired to have fun with gadgets and gimmicks that are cyber-spectacular. The Garden of Eden is now electronic: They took the byte out of the Apple store and haven't been the same since.
Surely there was nothing more exciting than having fresh milk in glass quart bottles, its cream floating lazily at the top, delivered each morning by a white-suited driver from Sealtest. Hannah wants a different seal of approval: She won't help herself to a glass of milk unless the BPA-free container, plastered with promises of being organic and GMO-free, has a testimonial attached to it by a happy grass-fed cow.
I want nothing but the best for my daughter, of course. Which is why my wife and I are saving for the national knowledge debt that will be her future college daze by contributing to a 529 fund.
Of course, when I went to college, 529 was more than a year's tuition.
But then times do change, no matter how unmovable memories remain, pushing back as reality wants to go forward.
I had just about given up on the old ways and days when, on a blistering morning, I foolishly asked my daughter to eschew the water park for a chance to jump through a garden hose with holes in it, as water spurted erratically around our lawn.
Hannah took one look and images of hyrdronics at the park were gone forever — well at least for that morning.
"It's my own water park!" she exclaimed, taking a leap of joy over the hose as her father took a leap — and a dance — of faith in proposing it. She had such a beatific smile on her face, so consumed by the sheer fun of this simple hose with a nose of sprouting water.
And that cream at the top of those home-delivered containers of milk suddenly tasted oh-so sweet once more.
Michael Elkin is author of the novel "I, 95" (Amazon Digital Services, 2014) and an award-winning playwright. His email is michaelelkin60@gmail.com.