Ten on the Tenth: Summer Memories

Ten on the Tenth.  I have not done this link-up in a quite awhile but it came to mind earlier and thought it would be fun to look into again.  Surprisingly, there are no questions for this month but just the idea of writing ten memories from summer.  Seemed easy enough…until I started trying to remember anything special.  Or noteworthy.  Summers were great when I was a kid.  Summers were a lot of fun when my own kiddos were young but, apparently, all those summers were, well, very “summer ordinary.”    I do have some (very) bittersweet – yet precious –  memories from the summer that my sweet Tyler passed away, but for this prompt, I’m sure the idea was “all the summer fun.”  Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of old photographs.  Nevertheless, these are some of the things that so say summer to me….

1 – Homemade ice cream.  My dad loved to make ice cream.  He used a wooden machine that he turned by hand.  I think the anticipation of it finally being “just the perfect” consistency was most of the fun.  I will say that he pretty much always made ice cream with fruit.  Especially peach.  And fruity ice creams are not my favorite but I certainly would enjoy a bowl of my dad’s fresh ice cream right about now!

2 – Kick the can.  Playing outside during the summer months was the best.  All the neighborhood kids would typically gather near my house because we lived in a cul-de-sac.  We would stay out as long as the parents would possibly let us and were always thrilled when that went past dark.  Games like kick the can were only played after dark and were the best fun.

3 – Bikes.  As a kid, we lived on our bikes.  We were allowed to ride just about anywhere throughout our neighborhood.  The only place you could not (NOT) ride a bike was through our yard.  My dad’s “pride and joy.”  He was not ridiculous about it but he did work very hard to have a very nice yard, so riding your bike around to the front of the house without cutting through the sideyard just made sense.  It is just what everyone did.  My first bike was pink (of course) with a basket on the front.  I loved that bike.  My first adult sized bike was a red, white and blue 10-speed FreeSpirit.  Blissful fun.  Tell me…did you ever clothespin a playing card to your bike spokes – because you were just that cool??

4 – The neighborhood swimming pool.  One place our bikes took us just about every day was the pool.  Our neighborhood pool was Olympic size and had both a standard diving board and a high dive…which we thought was the best.  Every summer you had to retake the swim test in order to get into the pool without an adult.  It was the rite of passage at the beginning of each summer.  We (my brother, just about every neighborhood kid I knew, and myself) were all on the swim team.  I was not particularly althletic and not nearly as competitive as most of my friends but the swim team was for everyone.  Those morning practices were freezing!!

5 – Vacation.  We vacationed to Florida every summer.  Yes, to Florida.  Yes, it was hot.  Yes, it was crowded.  But my dad was in his ultimate happy place.  I think he looked forward to summer vacation more than any of us.  I blogged about our trips before.  You can read about it here, if you want to see how much we paid to get in to Disney World.

6.  The Wonderful World of Disney.  Do you remember this show??  It came on every Sunday evening.  We were allowed to watch this – especially during the summer when school routines (and bedtimes) all seem to go out the window.  Side note:  we did not watch tons of tv but we were allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons.  I’m pretty sure that continued even during the school year.  Often, my parents would sleep in for just a bit while we were downstairs watching morning cartoons.  (Cartoons that were actually funny and for children.)  One Saturday morning, my brother opened a can of something (I cannot remember what it was) with the can opener but did not take the lid all the way off.  He totally ended up slicing his finger – very badly.  That ruined our weekend morning routine.

7.  Trips to my grandparents’ house.  They lived about three and a half hours south of us and, as often as we could, we made the trip down the highway to their house.  They had land, and woods, and a pond….and an in-ground swimming pool.  Days spent at my grandparents’ house were everything a kid should enjoy.  I’m sure it was a sacrifice for my parents to make all those trips, but we certainly have so many great memories from there.

8.  River swimming.  I cannot say we did this every summer but the fact that I would ever (much less more than once) swim in a river makes it noteworthy in my book.  We had friends with several acres that backed onto a river – with a rope swing.  They had a huge garden and (I think) a few animals.  It was completely different than my suburban neighborhood.  We loved to visit them and I experienced a bit of the country life.  And I loved it.  That included swimming in something without chlorine!  There may have snakes or who knows what other kinds of wildlife in there…but that never once entered my mind back then.  I was having too much fun on that swing.

9.  Summer camp.  This is not necessarily my favorite memory.  I tried it once.  And only once.  Camp was not for me.  The only think I really enjoyed was the horseback riding.  Never really had a chance to do that again but I remember wishing there was a way to ride horses – without going to camp.

10.  Fireworks.  Of course, most of us remember fireworks during the summer.  We would buy a few fireworks at the local shopping center stand but, honestly, my dad was big on the fireworks.  I feel certain we must have seen firework displays but I don’t remember them too much.  What I do remember (and why I included this one) was the year I went with a neighbor family downtown.  To the the nation capital’s display.  It was 1976…for the bicentennial!  I read this online:  The 1976 Bicentennial of American Independence was a major cultural phenomenon. A wave of patriotism and nostalgia swept the nation. For more than a year, it seemed that everyone was organizing events and activities to commemorate this milestone.  And I totally remember that.  The excitment.  The patriotism.  The fun!  To actually be downtown was amazing….and something I can still clearly remember!!

Thank for reading through all that – if you have made it this far.  Simple memories but some of the best memories.  I would love to know one “simple” thing you remember from your summer fun.  Here’s to still making memories!!  Have a great weekend ahead:)