Summertime (And the Living Was Easy)

 Summer is upon us – not officially.  This year’s summer solstice will occur on June 20.  But for me, June 1 ushers in the summer season, and with it, memories of the carefree summer days of my youth.  As an adult, summer too often means mowing the lawn, pulling weeds and working on projects around the house.  There’s some rotten wood up on the fascia, or is it the soffit?  I can never keep those straight.  Better line up some contractors and get some estimates.

I never had to think about such things as a kid.  Oh, there were chores, of course.  But I didn’t have to determine when they needed to be done.  My parents decided when I should mow the lawn or water the garden.  And most of those chores came only when I grew older – into my teen years. 

As a young boy, summer meant playing trucks down in “the shade,” which is what we called the tree covered lower portion of our neighbor’s yard.  If my friends and I felt ambitious, we might grab our bicycles, clothespin a baseball card to one of the fender struts and pretend our bikes were motorcycles.  Most of the streets in our neighborhood were hilly, but there was a street where we rode back and forth for hours that we called “the level.” 

When we got tired of pedaling our bikes, we might decide to go into “the woods.”  The woods were a cool respite from the blazing summer sun and offered nearly limitless opportunities for fun.  We had to get our mothers’ permission before heading into the woods, but our mothers hardly ever said “no” if it meant getting us out of the house.  Their most frequent summer refrain was, “Get out of the house before I give you something to do.”

We might spend several days building a shack in the woods where we could hide from younger siblings and read our comic books in peace.  Creeks snaking through the woods yielded salamanders and tadpoles that we captured and took home to show our parents.  One of the neighbor kids proposed a get-rich-quick scheme to trap muskrats. He claimed their pelts could be sold, but we were never quite sure who would buy them. 

As some of the neighborhood kids got older and more resourceful, they built “dinkies” to race.  I’m not sure where that word came from, but that’s what we called what the rest of the world called go-carts.  To the kids in my neighborhood, a go-cart had to have a motor.  These motorless dinkies consisted of a plank wide enough to sit on and a cross piece with wheels scavenged from a broken scooter or discarded baby stroller.  The cross piece was attached to the plank with a single bolt so it could swivel when pulled from either side with a rope or pushed by the driver’s feet to steer.  Rear wheels were attached directly to the plank. A small board was attached in front of the rear wheels to act as a brake when pressed by the driver.

Some dinkies were more elaborate with an actual seat, but not much more.  The hilly streets allowed for races with both drivers praying that they wouldn’t encounter a car as they sped around a corner.

On hot, summer evenings we would gather under the streetlight in front of my house and play games while our parents talked or listened to a baseball game on the front porch.  Hide and seek was a favorite.  We hid behind hedges and parked cars, waiting for the “it” person to call, “All-ee, All-ee in free!” 

When our parents decided we had had enough fun for one day, they called us into the house for a bath in cool water to try to beat the heat.  Air conditioning didn’t exist beyond grocery stores and movie theaters.  Despite the heat, we never seemed to have any trouble drifting off into dreamland, waking up refreshed and ready for more summer adventures. 

Now, when I tire of pulling weeds from my flower garden with rivulets of sweat streaming down my back, I’m tempted to curse the long, hot days of summer.  But those summer memories of my youth put a smile on my face as I retire to the comfort of my air-conditioned home and wonder when my grandchildren will be ready for a game of hide-and-seek under the streetlight.