IN THE GOOD OL' SUMMER TIME

Back in my olden days of summer, after my household chores and piano practicing were done, I had entire days of unstructured time. Our county had a summer playground program at local elementary schools every day.  That was usually the first place where I'd go.  My mother wouldn't drive me there.  I had to walk or ride my bike.  But I'd spend a delightful few hours with my friends under the direction of camp leaders doing crafts, playing organized games, performing skits and just hanging out.  It was at summer playground that I learned to work with plaster of Paris, play "Duck, Duck, Goose", sing traditional summer camp songs, make bracelets and lanyards out of gimp (a thin, flat plastic like material on spools that came in various colors). I probably took a lunch with me too.

 If I didn't go to summer playground, I'd find someone in the neighborhood to play with.  Depending on what age we were, we'd play with our dolls, explore the woods behind Gail's house, play board games, ride bicycles in the neighborhood, roller skate or organize a group of kids to play "Simon Says".  The hula hoops or pogo sticks would often come out and we'd have contests to see who could keep their hula hoop going or stay up on the pogo stick the longest. If I was lucky, one of my friend's whose family had a membership at the local pool, would invite me to go swimming with them.

My girlfriends and I would sometimes make cookies and bake cakes (from scratch, not from a box). And yes, we were unsupervised while using a gas oven that had to have the pilot light lit with a match every time you baked. Sometimes, I'd go home for lunch.  But more often than not, I had lunch at whatever house I was playing.  Just about every mother was home during the day back then and was willing to feed any extra kids that were around at lunch time.

Some days, my friend Terry and I would climb to the top of the huge cherry tree that was in the side yard of Terry's house. It gave us a great vantage point to what was going on around us.  We stayed up there talking and try to solve the problems of our small world.


About all my mother knew regarding my whereabouts was that I was in the neighborhood somewhere. If she needed me, she'd often holler out the back door. If I heard her, I'd come home. If I didn't hear her, but a neighbor mom did, I'd be informed that my mother was calling for me.  But my mother  always knew that I'd be home by dinner time and never seemed to be concerned about where or what I was doing all day.

If for some reason there was no one around to play with, I was on my own to figure out what to do.  Those were the days when I'd get on our backyard swing and see if I could get high enough to see over the bushes between our yard and Jeff's.  Or I'd lie on my back on the grass and look at the clouds floating by trying to see if they looked like something familiar.  Often, I'd get a book and retreat to the cool of our basement and read.  We had the complete set of the Bobbsey Twin books which I read over and over.  If our raspberries were ripe, I'd pick them and eat them right on the spot.

I'm pretty sure that if I ever complained to my mother about being bored, I was given something to do...hang  the wet wash on the line outside, fold and bring the dry wash inside, iron pillow cases, weed her flower beds, watch my younger brother, dust the hated shadow boxes or worst of all, practice the piano.

Those were good times - without a care in the world.  I often wish that the children of today had that kind of freedom to just be a child.