"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all."

~Laura Ingalls Wilder

September 6, 2010

Days of Endless Summer

The older I get, the more my summers seem to go like this: Memorial Day—> whoosh! —> Labor Day. I’m not exactly sure when this started to happen. All I know is that summer once seemed very different than it does now.

There used to be an eternity—give or take a millennium—between the last school bell in June and the first one in September. I remember zooming out the door of my elementary school and into glorious, sunshiny freedom. Summer stretched out ahead of me like an endless green lawn, dotted here and there with yellow butterflies, while the faint jingle of an ice cream truck sounded somewhere off in the distance.

Back then almost every house in our suburban neighborhood was bursting at the seams with kids. There were the baby boomers, already in their teens and sporting the long hair and tattered jeans that made them seem somehow exotic and unapproachable. The youngest kids in these families, the ones I ended up babysitting for, were the first of the Gen-Xers.

But the ones in between—the tail-end boomers born in the late 50s and early 60s—those are the ones who ruled summers when I was a kid. Nobody was in daycare. We just woke up, slipped on a striped or plaid shirt and a pair of shorts, poured ourselves a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, and headed outside. Calling each other first to make plans? Unheard of. We just knocked on the doors and asked the moms if our friends could come out and play.
Me (far right) and the backyard
Kool-Aid stand I won in a contest

And boy, did we play. Climbing trees, catching butterflies, building forts, jumping rope, challenging each other to squirt gun fights and bike races. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo! Red Rover, Red Rover, and Mother May I? Endless games of kickball and dodgeball and baseball in someone’s backyard. The yards were small so we were always calling interference! and do over! whenever the ball hit a clothesline or a swingset.

Sometimes a mom would bring out Dixie cups full of Kool-Aid, or slices of watermelon, or a boxful of popsicles, which we gulped down gratefully. Moving from yard to yard, you could manage to have sticky fingers practically from breakfast until bathtime. And if you got thirsty, every yard had a hose, hooked up to a handy spigot.

Make-believe was part of summer, too. Spy shows and westerns were popular then, so we assigned parts and acted out episodes from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or Roy Rogers. Sometimes we cobbled together costumes and put on plays out in the garage, charging the moms and younger kids 10¢ for popcorn.
My husband Jim (center) 
and neighborhood pals

We were expected home for supper, of course, but after that the porch lights went on. Then it was Kick the Can at dusk, catching fireflies in jars, and playing Sardines until you were the last one left and your own yard suddenly seemed like a scary, alien planet. When the dads came outside to call us in, that meant a cool bath, maybe a little TV, and then falling asleep to the sound of chirping crickets and whirring fans.

Back then, summer seemed to spin out with endless days like this. As soon as one was over, another would begin, with no end in sight. So by Labor Day, I felt ready to leave the long, hot days behind and get back to school where a whole different set of friends awaited me. I don’t remember pausing to look back.

Now I wonder why I didn’t appreciate those childhood summers more. I guess I thought it would always be that way, that there would always be more of everything waiting just around the corner—more sunshine, more running through the fresh-mown grass, more eating cherry popsicles, more laughing so hard your sides ached, until you literally had to fall down on the ground and make yourself stop.


Ferry Boat ride to Mackinac Island
Having kids of my own and seeing summer through their eyes brought some of the old feelings back to me, and I’m grateful for that. It was fun to take them to the beach, run with them down the big hill at the park, go camping together. They rammed around our neighborhood with friends, caught butterflies in the garden, put on carnivals in the backyard, slept out on our screened porch.


In fact, I would say that their childhood summers were some of their happiest days, too. I hope so. I also hope they get to relive them with their kids someday. My wish for them, now and forever, is a life where the sunshine and popsicles and laughter are always right there in reach, as sweet and delicious as an endless summer day.