Summer Still Casts A Spell On Its Fans

It’s kind of tough to look cool at the side of the pool when your mom is shucking off your dirty diaper.

But Tranquil Kamae, who recently turned 1, probably didn’t care about appearances. He just wanted to get back into the water.

First, though, he had to wait for his mother, Heather, 19, to slip his midcalf-length navy blue swimming trunks back on. Then, together, they stepped into the little wading pool at Coeur d’Alene Park in Spokane’s Browne’s Addition Saturday afternoon.

For a moment, Tranquil stood still and watched some big kids. They might have been first-graders. They were yelling happily and tossing around a plastic ball.

Then Tranquil went back to doing his own thing. Slowly but semi-surely, he walked through water that was about 6 inches deep.

He’s too young to have been pretending that he was a Godzilla-like monster sloshing into the harbor of an unsuspecting city. But that’s what it looked like he was imagining.

Well, it did until he bent over and started playing patty-cake on the water’s surface, smiling and squealing at the splashing he was creating.

“We work with him in the bathtub,” his mother explained after being told that the boy seemed at home in the water.

Tranquil made a face that seemed to say, “Sorry, no time for interviews.”

So Being There’s next stop early Saturday night in search of the quintessential summer scene was Wonderland Golf & Games up at 109839584 North Division.

What could be more summer-like than miniature golf?

There’s a school of thought holding that there is nothing that says “July” quite like the sight of a 14-year-old boy trying to make a hole-in-one through a make-believe windmill in the hope that it will impress a 14-year-old girl. There’s something about those green and red balls and fake grass that just seems to set the stage for budding romance.

Well, once upon a time at any rate.

But at that hour most of the golfers were families and grown-up couples.

One group did include a pair of seemingly appealing girls who might have been around 14. But the nearest boys of similar age seemed utterly oblivious. “I don’t want to hurt you,” one boy said to another in mock seriousness. “But I will if I have to.”

Something told me I’d have better luck waiting for Tranquil Kamae to turn 14 than I would counting on those guys to make a move.

It was time to go check out the go-carts.

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits Inland Northwest gatherings.