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I still have great memories of summertime when I was a kid. We lived
1/2 block from a city park & spent many afternoons playing there with
neighborhood kids & also my cousins. It was close enough for us to hear
my mom's call to supper.:)
My brothers & I loved to play "kick the can" on our sidewalk in the evenings.
When it started to get dark, we caught fireflys around the front porch till
mom called us inside for baths & bed.:D
Probably my favorite memory is that of berry picking when I lived in the country for a very brief time or when I visited my older sister. I especially liked elderberries and my parents would make elderberry jam and pies. Back then, little girls wore dresses a lot, even to play in, and I would carry the berries home in my skirt and, of course, have berry stains all over my dress but my mother never scolded me. (Not for that, anyhow.) Usually by the time I got home though, the berries were gone. :p Catching "lightning bugs" (fireflies) and going to the Dairy Queen after dark and Dad would allow me to go in my pajamas are also fond memories. (I rode in the back seat.)
My grandparents' old house. :)
My grandma will be gone for 9 years next month. Amazing how time flies by so fast... I hold so many memories close to my heart when I was a little kid at that house they used to live in.
GRANDMA'S HOUSE!
Got to spend most of the summers there. Dad would drop me off-he worked around the corner at the brickyard! That woman had a green thumb.
There was pomegranates, grapes, avocados, peaches, figs, plums squash, spearmint, morning glories, bird of paradise, african violets and god knows what else growing there!
That was a blast!
When I was younger, Grandmas house was always a lot of fun.
My fondest memory of summer though is just being outside. My parents went out into the wilderness alot to camp and fish and I just loved to walk around and observe nature. Its something I still like to do even now :D
I've gone to a lot of outdoor campout parties and those are always fun. Enjoying music under the stars with a group of friends and sharing experiences is something I really enjoy.
When I lived in S.C. we used to go to Hunting Island every year during the week of July 4th. It was always a lot of fun because we stayed in a cottage on the private part of the beach. My 2 brothers and I would spend most of the day at the beach and they'd fish while my dad and I would go crabbing in the channel. I also found many beautiful sea shells. We would also hand feed some racoons every night but we had to make sure that we didn't leave any food out on the screened in porch.
I also liked catching fire flies or lightning bugs as we used to call them. We did this every summer at home. We also caught a lot of frogs and toads because we lived across from a lake. We fished out of the lake too.:) As you can tell I was a tomboy.;)
We also had a community pool and tennis court in my neighborhood and by day I would be at the pool and some evenings I would play tennis.:)
My favorite summer memories all involve boats and water! We lived in upstate New York when I was a kid. We had a boat and took it out every chance we could. My dad and Uncle Jim rented a cottage (the same cottage every year) for 3 weeks every summer at Sodas Point (on Lake Ontario). We would fish off the dock, go swimming at the sandbar, go swimming off the dock, and just cruise around in the boat. Every night my dad would walk us down to the little ice cream shop to get ice cream. We always knew where we were going but my dad would simply say "who wants to go for a walk?" Then when we got down to the corner (where the ice cream shop was) he'd say "I'm running on empty, I needs some gas (or sometimes steam) to get me back home." The ice cream was the gas to get us back home.
When my dad was working and we weren't out in the boat with him my mom would take us to our friends' house on another lake. It was over an hour from our house so we'd usually spend a night or 2 there nearly every week.
Something that I should've included in my summer memories is walks w/my son when he was a little boy of age 3. We'd go to the woods nearby our house and just sit and watch. One time I told him to observe how many fairies and gnomes he could see. After a few minutes, he'd exclaim "I saw one, Mom! I saw one!" and he point and say "There it is, look!" It was just our secret; we didn't even share it w/his father because we knew he'd make fun of us. When we lived in Hampton, VA, (he was still in diapers then) we lived directly across the street from Chesapeake Bay and we'd take daily walks when the tide was out and we'd have to hop, skip and jump to keep from stepping on the jellyfish. I wanted him to see the magic in everything. During the holidays, the ships would be decorated w/colorful lights and they would reflect on the water at night. It was such a magical time.
Every summer we'd head up the coast from El Lay to a state beach/campground called Leo Carrillo
There are tons of squirrels in the area. Very brazen, very mischevious.
I was there with my dad and GF for a few days. During this trip I asked my dad if he wanted to go for walk-we'd take some sandwiches and find a spot on the sand. "Nope", he wanted to sit down and enjoy some alone time at the campsite.
I fixed him up some lunch and left on a little jaunt.
When we came back about 20 minutes later I saw my dad giving the squirrels some food.
He was passed out cold-he was at the age where he'd get nap attacks often-so I wasn't surprised! He managed to hold onto the plate but some food had fallen to the dirt.
He had about 10 squirrels around him. One was on his knee eating out of the paper plate, a few more were munching on the spilled potato chips and the rest were chittering on the table next to his folding chair.
Right at that moment he jerked awake and saw what was going on about him.
As his lunch guests scattered he got the biggest grin on his face and started to laugh.
He looked over to where we were and began to laugh harder. It was like we had caught him doing something wrong, I saw the little boy in my dad that I had never seen before.
I walked up and asked him, "What happened?" By this time we were all giggling like fools. We got pops a new sandwich and spent the rest of the day fending off squirrels that thought they had an open ended invite for lunch and dinner.
It was the last time he went camping at the beach and the one that I'll cherish the most.
:)
When I was young we lived near the Appalachian Mountains in the country. There were several acres of woods behind our house. We would all go walking in the woods which were always beautiful. My sweet cat Yogi, who I still miss, would also walk with us. We also had a fruit orchard on our property and my dad would mow "rooms" in the grass there so I could play. I remember playing outside for hours and hours.
I also loved the sleepovers with my friends during the summer. We'd always stay up WAY too late, but somehow it would seem like the most profound discoveries were always made past midnight. :D
Visiting Aunt Bertha's house in New Hampshire, and gliding on the glider couch on the back porch, screened in, but overlooking just New Hamphire White Mountain wilderness.
Spending weekends up at our trailer. So many memories of that place. it's even where I got my first kiss LOL. We had that trailer for 15 or 20 years. it was very sad when they got rid of it :(
Spending one week a year at a cottage up in HOney Harbor Ontario. all we ever did was fish, swim, eat ice cream, go out on the boat, get poutine at the chip wagon because we didn't want to take the time to cook becuase we were having too much fun, sit by the fire, get thrown off the dock by your cousin in all your clothes... not a swimsuit lol, and when I got... closer... to drinking age lol we would just sit around and play cards and drink when it was raining or bring some drinks to the dock for fishing. AWESOME. We still go up there from time to time but it is hard to do it every year. Hoping to do it in the next two or three years when we can bring Hannah and she can have fun too.
:D:D:D Me & my brothers did that too! I still love watching fireflys.Quote:
Originally Posted by lizbud
We lived just a few blocks from the local park & swimming pool, and all summer we would practically live at the pool. Only went home for meals & to go to sleep. They used to have recreation activities for the kids at the park, too. I recall making LOTS and LOTS of gifts for Mom out of pop-sicle sticks!:love:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyber-sibes
Hey Pat, I had forgotten about the popsicle sticks. Doing crafts at the
park was a lot of fun.:)
For the first 16 years of my life, I lived on the eastern shore of Maryland, in the upper portion, right on the Chesapeake Bay. Each summer seemed endless. We went swimming nearly every day, from right after breakfast, came home for lunch, back to the bay, and home for dinner. We lived in bathing suits. We never took a bath....well, seldom....we were water logged each day. I swear I could breathe underwater, that is how much time I spent in the water. Our noses would bleed from sunburn and peeling so much. We were guaranteed to get at least one nasty ear infection by summer's end.
We often would have dinner outside, eating corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes with mayonaise. Lots of iced tea or something my Mom would call "belly wash"....grape juice and orange juice with lots of water and ice added..... We would eat without a worry about our faces being covered with corn and butter...and mayo..... Then to top it all off, we would have watermellon. Mmmmmmmmmmm. I think we probably took a bath those nights....as we ate while still wearing our swimsuits....
Sometimes we would eat dinner in our summer PJs because our swimsuits were still wet and not too comfy to sit around in for any length of time....
I remember catching fire flies in cups.....they would all die.....
I remember one of our collie dogs had puppies and one night we (my brother and I) spent the night in a tent with all of the puppies. Boy, that was heaven. We didn't get much sleep!
All in all, our summers were the best. We water skiied, sailed, fished, swam, hiked, played king of the raft, built sand castles, threw jelly fish at each other, had lots of sand fights in the water....lots of splinters, stubbed toes, sun burned shoulders...went "buck bathing" a few times!!:eek:
We didn't need to go to summer camp......we lived in one!:love:
By the way, this topic is just one of the best in a long time.... Thanks Karen!