It’s a hot,
humid summer day in 1953, and I'm an eight-year old girl. A quick bowl of
cereal for breakfast (probably Cheerios or Sugar Pops) along with white toast
and possibly hot chocolate (the kind you mix up in a pan on the stove top),
fixes me up for a day of aimless distractions in the neighborhood.
The first
thing I probably do is knock on a neighbor’s front door and ask if a friend can
come out to play. Once connected with a friend or two or more, a serious
discussion takes place that may result in one or more friends leaving the
group. Would it be a morning of bicycles, badminton, balancing on the railroad
tracks all the way to the corner store or playing house in the basement?
Cowgirl
bicycling would often be my choice. Getting ready to play required the delicate
business of taking my bicycle out of the one-car garage without scratching the
side of Mom’s car. Next I’d search for
the short lengths of rope for reins that I’d used last time I pretended to be a
cowgirl on a bicycle horse.
Probably
someone would suggest putting cards on the bicycle spokes, which took even more
time during the “getting ready” phase.
I had a
cowgirl hat and a set of cap guns complete with a two-gun holster. After riding
around the block a couple of times shooting caps at each other, we’d probably decide
to play something different like softball. That meant rounding up a ball and
bat before walking the six blocks down to the school to play on the grass under
the big elm tree or setting up make-shift bases in the street.
If memory
serves, we often spent much more time getting ready to do something than
actually doing it! The very best fun was sitting on the big fallen tree at the
end of the street near the train tracks and making up games. Sometimes we’d
play “Mother May I” or “Draw a Magic Circle.” Other days, we’d pretend to ride the
tree trunk as if we were on horseback and scream for the caboose trainman to
toot the whistle when the train roared past us.
Lunch would
be a sandwich grabbed from the fridge and a can of pop. We’d have a backyard
picnic and then go about the ritual of thinking up something to do for the
afternoon like playing Monopoly or jacks on the front sidewalk. Sometimes we’d
roller skate on the smooth sidewalk around the corner after spending time
searching for a skate-key and clamping on our skates.
Summer days
seemed endless, and we didn’t go in for supper until mother yelled for us in a
voice that carried across all the backyards in the neighborhood. After dinner it would be kick-the-can out
front of the house under the street light or telling ghost stories in the dark
until we scared ourselves inside to television shows like “I Love Lucy” or “Red
Skelton” before going reluctantly to bed. The next morning it was more of the
same, and we all hoped summer would never end.
But, summer
did end and the years rolled by until looking back, I long for those days when
summer didn’t run out in a flash and fall, winter, and spring speed by in
barely a moment. I’m retired, and I move more slowly now, but time seems to
slip away like Superman, “faster than a speeding bullet.” I often dream of
those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” Do you?
