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Childhood summers


heidiiiii

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I was explaining to Chels about what I used to do during the summers as a kid. We didnt have any A.C.! We had box fans and they didnt do much.

But I was wondering what you all did as a child during the summer. Like what kind of memories do you have?

First thought.. blade of thick grass pressed between my thumbs, and making that hellish noise when you blow!

Having permission to stay out in neighbors yard after the street lights came on to play a hide and seek game called Bloody Mary.

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I grew up in West Palm Beach, FL, without AC. In the summer we climbed trees and wherever a builder was prepping a lot we'd go spend a few weeks playing in his sand pile. We built Seminole villages out of sticks & leaves and the lucky few who had bikes rode them. I'd mow our little yard with Daddy's old push-mower and then get out my old magnifying glass and use it to fry the biting ants in their anthills. I made ant colonies in old jelly jars and sprouted dry lima beans and grew copper sulfate & alum crystals and learned to sew, crochet & embroider. I read a lot, usually moved into the old library downtown the first Saturday after school was out. When it was too hot to breathe we'd find whatever house had the lawn sprinkler going & play in the spray. Some kids' families automatically wormed them just before school started up again!

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I was a tomboy growing up, so I played baseball in the street with the guys. Rode bicycles all over the neighborhood, to the shopping center before they covered it into a mall. Hung out there, bought an ice cream at the Savon drugstore for (I don't believe this now) a nickel a scoop. Went swimming almost everyday at the neighbor's pool. This neighbor didn't have children of her own, but had a pool full every summer. Climbing the fruit trees in our backyard to pick the ripe peaches and plums, eating them right there in the tree. And going to the beach, since I live in southern California. Piling all the kids from the neighborhood into the car, with a picnic lunch and cooler. And taking along an umbrella for my mother to sit under. I guess she knew about sun damage even way back then.

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I didn't like being outside much as a kid (didn't like being alone much), we lived on a road where the closest house was a 10 minute walk and they didn't have kids. So I stayed inside and read books. Sometimes I would talk my dad into driving me to my best friends house and I would stay the entire day there (she lived on a farm), that would be when I got my fresh air being outside :( .

Then every weekend the family packed into the car and went to my dad's cabin in the Allegheny mountains. I loved going there. The trees, the animals and the river. My brother and I use to live in the river (I guess that's why I can't swim in a swimming pool, no current :lol: ). This summer DH and I thought it would be nice to try to relive some of that and share it with our kids. My dad and brother are thrilled to hear that, we just have to figure out when DH can take some time off from work to go and there's also the gas prices to contend with. But the kids will love it just like I did so what's a little money compared to the happiness of children and making memories with them? :lol:

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I rollerskated, but only in the evening, as the Central Valley of California was HOT. Not as hot as it is now, but hot-hot-hot, and due to the energy crisis, one couldn't run one's AC in the hottest part of the afternoon. Then I'd come inside and make unsweetened Kool-Aid with very little sugar (about 1/4 cup instead of the more than a cup called for). I had a craving for that the other day, but the modern flavors are so weird that I made limeade instead.

Several years, I built a sprawling county fair for my hordes of Fisher Price Little People.

My grandparents had a lot of fruit and nut trees, so we had fresh cherries that were NOT $8.99 a pound.

Honestly, I was just missing the sense of irresponsibility and stuff-to-look-forward-to of being 10 or so. Usually I really like being a grown-up, so this is odd.

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I moved around alot but in the 3rd grade we bought our first house

it was in a housing development of 17 houses out in the middle of no where.

almost every house had kids. we lived at the entrance of a dead end road and at the end was my best friends house...she was in a wheel chair(spina Bifida) they had airconditioning....we only had a window unit in my mom and dads room coz he slept days and worked nights. we had box fans in windows.

my BGF had a pool to help stengthen her arms and lungs and the whole neighborhood would be in it every day. there was about 30 of us kids.

we got a larger pool when I was in 7th grade so than the big kids swam in our pool and the moms and little kids swam down at the friends. we rode bikes. hiked in the woods(against all the rulles due to living on Rattlesnake Hill) but when you are a kid ya dont think about such things. or care. we built forts in the corn fields another no no due to they werent our cornfields. ;)

my mother had us do our chores early and sent us out side...no one came back in the house unless we all came in the house. as the oldest(7 yrs older than my sister) I was in charge of her and I went NO where without her. we had a metal shed that dad let her have as her playhouse...so we spent alot of time playing tea parties. lots of boys in the neighborhood so we older kids played lots of baseball and frisbee 500

untill we all were old enough to know about better things to do with boys! :D :lol: :D

mom would call us in for lunch and for dinner and after dinner all had to bathe with 1/2 cup of bleach to help with the chiggar bites. my outside choore was to mow witha pushmower over 2 acres of grass on Sat and on Sund I had to use little hand clippers to clip the grass along the sidewalk1 inch below sidewalk. and it was a LOOONG sidewalk. hated that job! :lol:

we were expected to drink out of the hose in the day time and limit our trips in the house to potty breaks.

when my sister went in for her nap I had alot more freedom.

we very seldom watched TV.

we used to have sleepovers in our backyard with 4 or 5 of us in sleeping bags sleeping under the stars.

and night swims in the pool. we also played Little legue Baseball. I played shortstop!

mom took me every 2 weeks to the library bout an hour drive and I was one of the lucky few who could check out as many books as I wanted to because I was such a voracious reader. LOVE to read! :p

funny how times have changed....I have to kick my daughter out of the house to the back yard to go swimming.

I remember summer time in my childhood very fondly.

nutti :(

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When I was quite small, mom & daddy would take us to see & visit his family in Shelby, & Rutherford NC. We'd visit both of my great-grandmothers(daddy was one of the oldest grandchildren, I was one of the oldest great-grandchildren) which was alot of fun. He'd also take us to Grandfather mountain and Chimney Rock--I still love to visit there, it is one of my favorite places on earth. Also Tweetsie railroad, but that's changed a bit.

After Daddy died, Mom remarried my stepfather, and we would all go camping alot. They had an RV and I went camping every summer with them and another family, sort of a mini convoy you might say. :( My stepdad had a CB radio and so did his best friend. My dad was known as 'Slowpoke' (after his black and tan hound Pokey) and his friend's handle was the Toolman, because Mr. Norwood sold tools. I grew up with his kids, and we still get together. It's funny now we all have our own kids, stepkids, and we still carry on the old traditions together. Some thiings you don't get away from. One of the kids, Jearl, who is my age, his wife recently had a baby and I gave her a finished roombox for her nursery, and they loved it since there was a pic of them all at their wedding in it.

I also used to go camping when I was older with my grandparents in Tappahannock, they had an RV. They were true river people, would go down for a week or a weekend stay at a certain same site, plow their garden on their land they had down there, fish, it was fun. Gramps (my grandfather--mother's dad) would teach me how to fresh water fish, and tell me stories. quite fun.

I didn't play much outside during ho hum summers at home--I used to read ALOT as a kid, and also play dollhouse! :lol: Summer I really looked forward to because I could get so much done with my dollhouse back then. Looking back now, I guess summers really prepared me for all the traveling I love to do now--so it's a good thing I guess. :lol:

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Summertime for me meant one thing: The Beach!

My mother and her friends would meet with all the kids every morning at the local free beach. Swimming, handstands, inner tubes, sand castles, and collecting shells. I remember going to the tackle shop next door and getting a glass bottle of coke. The smell of bait brings back that memory. :( My mother`s friend crocheted me a red two piece bathing suit one year.

When we didnt go to the beach I was outside all the time. You couldnt drag me inside. We rode bikes (no hands on handlebars), skateboarding, rollerskating. We climbed trees and played with army men. Ghost man wiffle ball, touch football, and hide and seek. My friends and I always found something to do.

Every summer while my dad was alive we would go on vacation to the Cape in late August. Always stayed in Chatam (sp?) in the same motel. Visited relatives in Truro, day trip to P-Town, and take the ferry to either Martha`s Vineyard or Nantucket.

We also used to take day trips to Newport to visit my brother and his family and tour the mansions.

I also have fond memories of my dad`s boat. Scrapeing the bottom and new paint job. Going out on Long Island Sound. Fishing for stripers and black fish.

My grandfather and step-grandmother would come down every summer for a month from Italy and stay at my aunts house in Mass. That was always a nice visit.

Calamari is right.. childhood was blissful. We all wanted to hurry up and grow up. Too bad we didnt know better!

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We pretty much grew up poor - but that didn't dampen summers any. Summers meant 3 things - Heat, Taking a trip somewhere (dad got a week off in August) and best of all No School!!! There are some summer traditions you just don't forget - catching lizards, digging tunnes in the grove for my hotwheels cars, watching the dog chase flies and end up falling in the pool (we had an above ground fiberglass pool) at least once a summer - getting stung by at least one bee - stubbing my toe usually more than once and dad smashing his thumb once a year while camping. But best of all just having time to relax, be alone and laze about watching the clouds roll by while listening to frogs and watching dragonflies. We didn't have any airconditioning so the coolest place to be was outside in the shade laying in the grass and the neighbors had a big pond so we'd get a lot of dragonflies and frogs around and on heavy rain years some tiny frogs living in the wash next to our house. I also remember summer being the start of horney-toad season (horned-lizards) so we'd always keep a close eye out for horney toads (fun) and rattle snakes (not fun).

- David :(

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