The
moment the last school bell rang, it announced the start of summer. Goodbye
school books and school uniforms, hello freedom.
Up
until the ninth grade, I wore Catholic school uniforms intended to discourage
sin, so summer meant no more confining, white blouses with Peter Pan collars,
no more heavy gabardine skirts that hung below our knees, and no more clumsy
saddle oxfords. It was time to go native – sleeveless tees, short shorts, and
bare feet.
Our
sissy feet would toughen up after months of confinement. The white marks the
Bobby sox left on our ankles from lack of sun would soon brown up like the rest
of us. We bombed all over the neighborhood.
Since
we went to bed as late as the grownups, Grandma let us sleep in until nine
every morning. We were pretty much on our own most of the day as long as we did
our chores and showed up for meals.
Summer
days were a time for play, exercise, and discovery, but the evenings were the
best. The day would cool down and all
the parents came home from work. They brought out lawn chairs and watched us romp
until the mosquitoes got too thick.
The
neighbor kids and my brother, sis, and I played a succession of games and made
up others – Mother May I, Red Light/Green Light, Freeze Tag, Hide and Go Seek.
. . . We formed teams and played Front Yard Baseball like pros. Our Sycamore
tree was first base, the Ligustrum across the street was second, the Mountain
Juniper next door was third, and Mom’s mean, old rosebush was home.
We zigzagged around, chasing
dragon flies and fireflies. We hooted
and darted catching grumpy bumble bees. We
dug up worms and ant lions. We had
doodlebug races and confused the parades of ants. We were fearless until it was
time to go inside, wash up, and go to bed, then we whined like the kids that we
were. We didn’t have air conditioning so we slept with our windows open, the
cicadas serenading us to sleep.
On
Sunday our fat summer feet refused to squeeze into our patent leather church shoes.
Our dress up clothes felt tight and scratchy on our tanned bodies. We laughed at each other (behind Mama’s back)
when our hair refused to obey her attempts to comb it into chic, little hairdos.
We
dreaded when Mom started loading up with new uniforms and school supplies. It heralded the end of all that fun. Self-discovery
and play is a lost art in a society full of electronics. It should be as vital as formal
schooling.
Hello, I finally made it to your site after seeing you on Elizabeth (Younts) FB page for a long time. When I was a kid we played all of those games, too. When we played kickball in the front yard (our house was the Kool-Aid house where all the neighborhood kids gathered) the fire hydrant was first base, a scrawny crabapple was second, a bush by the living room window was third and the patch of dirt by the seam in the driveway was home. Good memories. And I agree, children still need that time outdoors with their imagination.
ReplyDeleteThank your for that nice comment.
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