Summer has arrived — but the sounds of summer were better in the ’70s.

As a kid, I woke every morning to the birds chirping outside my window screen, a dewy chill in the air. I’d smell my father’s pipe, which he smoked while he read the paper downstairs. I’d go down to greet him. He’d make scrambled eggs and toast covered with butter, and we’d eat while the birds kept on singing.

The evening sounds were equally powerful: a dog barking; a motorcycle downshifting on some faraway hill; people out on their porches listening to the Pirates play on the radio; a baby crying; a couple talking; children laughing; a window fan humming.

As I explain in my lighthearted book “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,” we kids spent our days out in the hills roaming and exploring.

We collected scrap wood and built shacks. We dammed up the creek and caught minnows and crayfish. One summer, we built a........

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