What was your favorite summer memory as a child?
I talked to my super great friend today and asked her this question. Guess what she said?
On Wednesday, her dad had the afternoon off. Every Wednesday he took her to Linden Lake to swim and play in the water. He stayed with her. They talked. They had a great time and on the way home they always stopped and got a snow cone! So delicious. Such a special time. “I’m sure he had many other things he wanted to do or needed to do on his afternoon off, but he chose to spend it with me.”
Making memories. Giving each other time; a precious commodity we have only so much of.
What did you do when you were a child? What “summer program” were you enrolled in?
Well, I guess I had enrichment! We neighborhood kids were busy from early dew-laced morning to dusky dirty sunset!
We studied biology. We learned about tadpoles. Where to find them, how to catch them, how to keep them and watch them develop little legs and arms and eventually turn into croaking, hopping frogs!
We learned physics. If you swing from a vine across a deep canyon-like ditch you only get across the ditch if you have a pretty good running start! My friend shared that she did this with friends, daring to survive the local “Grand Canyon.” One day they had a friend with them who was not the typical skinny kid, but quite a bit heavier. As she ran and pushed herself off the side of the ditch to swing out, she didn’t make it very far, she got scared, and let go of the collection of vines in her hands. Down she went! They had to go get the adults to retrieve her from the bottom of the sandy bottom.
We learned history. The old cemetery was a frequent haunt of ours in the hot afternoons. The cedars were old and shady. We wandered and read the tombstones. You can learn a lot in a cemetery — the section where the old graves of the Confederate soldiers were slowly crumbling, the black wrought- iron fence around the little burial house of the beloved of some man who lost her long ago, and the rows of little babies lost to all kinds of sickness.
We learned about courage. We dared to climb the highest trees. We rode horses and slowly rose to our bare feet balancing on the saddle to ride in circles standing up! We explored the woods around our homes barefoot and defenseless. We conducted careful “wars” with the neighborhood boys, and no one got hurt.
We learned stealth. We crept up on rabbits we found and often caught them. I hunted with my faithful BB gun and felt powerful and competent. We were quiet for a long time as we watched for each other in the mowed paths of broom sage dad cut out for us with the lawn mower. We played hide and seek, army and cowgirls.
We lived Psalm 118:24: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Capture that joy today!
