Summer Memories ... add yours!

[lizbud]

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.

[Medusa]

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. 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.)

[CountryWolf07]

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.

[RICHARD]

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!

[DJFyrewolf36]

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
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.

[krazyaboutkatz]

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.

[BitsyNaceyDog]

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.

[cyber-sibes]

When it started to get dark, we caught fireflys around the front porch till mom called us inside for baths & bed.

Me & my brothers did that too! I still love watching fireflys.
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!

[lizbud]

Me & my brothers did that too! I still love watching fireflys.

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!

Hey Pat, I had forgotten about the popsicle sticks. Doing crafts at the
park was a lot of fun.

[sasvermont]

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!!

We didn't need to go to summer camp......we lived in one!

By the way, this topic is just one of the best in a long time.... Thanks Karen!

[Karen]

Everyone mentioning fireflies is making me think of the summer night we really got to know my cousin's brand-new husband. When he grabbed a plastic cup and leapt off my parents' porch, we wondered what was up - but it just turned out he was catching a couple fireflies in a cup to marvel at and then let go. At that point, we decided he was okay!

Every once in a while we have a firefly or two in our back yard here, and it always makes me smile!

[Medusa]

Ok, now that Karen mentioned fireflies again, it brought up another memory for me. It was dark and my husband (at that time) was still outside, so I thought I'd go find him and when I did, he was standing at the split rail fence taking it all in: there were hundreds and hundreds of fireflies hovering. It looked as though we had lit up the back portion of our property. My now late SIL had never seen a firefly before and when she saw that, she was awestruck! This is a great thread!

[*LabLoverKEB*]

Hmmm... lets see here...

Oh, catching fireflys with my cousins back at my grandparents house in Illinois

Going to the cottage in Wisconsin with the entire family

Swimming with the neighbors

Family & friends, and sometimes neighborhood BBQs

Taking walks with the dogs in the park at night

[lizbud]

Just thought of another summertime treat when we were kids. There
was a wreck of a the Blue Bird Pie company delivery truck on our corner
one time & the pies got throw around (inside their boxs) & unfit to deliver.

The driver let all the people have free pies. Each of us kids brought
a pie back to mom with the story of "free pies". She went outside to check
our story before she let us keep them.

[RICHARD]

Just thought of another summertime treat when we were kids. There
was a wreck of a the Blue Bird Pie company delivery truck on our corner
one time & the pies got throw around (inside their boxs) & unfit to deliver.

LOL, The end of the story should be, For the rest of the summer we thought of different ways to get a truck to crash for more free pies!
------------

Out here we had the Helms Bakery Truck. It was a Ford with double doors at the back, You'd flag him down like the ice cream man.

He's open the doors and you see six shelves of baked goods. You'd ask him for donuts and he'd sllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiddddddddde open this long drawer. I was short enough to get the whiff of the MAPLE DONUTS-God Bless America, my mouth is watering!!!! He had pies, turnovers, chips, bread and cookies.

It was like a baked food junky's mobile dealer!