What are your favorite childhood summer memories

[Mrs. Readsalot]

Mine are simple things

walking to the My-T-Fine snowball stand

Playing kick the can with a ton of neighborhood kids

bashing the heck out of the claws from steamed crabs (kids were only allowed the claws)

going crabbing with my dad

catching crayfish in the stream near our house

building a tree fort in the woods

 

The simple things were really the best weren't they. Summer is such a great time for reflection!

[Crissy]

I loved the hours of bike riding around the neighborhood with my brother. And climbing from one tree to the next to get over the creek at the end of our street.

In the evenings all of the neighborhood kids would gather in the cul-de-sac to play tetherball (my sister was the tetherball queen) and four-square (someone's dad spray-painted a four-square court in the middle of the cul-de-sac.)

We'd all play until it was too dark to see.

[Michelle in MO]

OK, here's my list:

 

1. The Bookmobile parking right in front of our house every two weeks! We lived in what used to be a very tiny suburb/village of the Twin Cities; thus, we had no library---yet. The county bookmobile just happened to park in front of our house. It was so great to run 30 feet and load up with books! I really think this experience drove me to love reading!

 

2. My mom made a skating rink in our backyard one winter! It was great fun.

 

3. Another skating memory---skating at the rink at the local elementary school until our feet practically froze off, then going inside the warming house, then going back out again for more "punishment"!

 

4. Sledding in the winter down a huge hill, and bringing my "snack" of a can of sardines and a thermos of hot cocoa. :tongue_smilie:

 

5. Playing hide & seek in the cornfield behind our house. Exploring the farm behind our house with a friend and writing "books" about our experiences.

 

6. Playing ping-pong in the basement with my brother and his friends.

 

7. Going up north to Ely, MN with my family every summer. Stopping at a great Mom & Pop restaurant for the best caramel rolls ever on the drive up to Ely. Renting a cabin with no TV and reading dozens of Louis L'Amour Westerns and playing chess. "Fishing" in the boat with my family (I "fished" by bringing along a book to read; I always found fishing incredibly boring!).

 

8. Having a pogo-stick contest with my best friend, and jumping on that thing until we were both sick.

 

9. Going trapping with my brother, who was an avid outdoorsman even at an early age. He would leave his window open in his bedroom in the winter in Minnesota because he wanted to "harden" himself for his planned move to Alaska when he graduated from high school! I went trapping with him once. He caught a blue jay. He never took me again.

 

10. Putting on a neighborhood talent show with my best friend.

 

I'm sure there are others, but these are off the top of my head. I hope others answer, too, with their best childhood memories.

[OnTheBrink]

Summer camp! I went to El Tosoro (I think that's how it's spelled) in Texas every year for 5 years and rode horses, reheard all the Indian legends, swam, sat by the campfire, slept in hammocks on Mt. Loma. Fun fun fun!

 

When I got to Junior high, and no longer lived in Texas, I went to camp on Catalina Island. That was fun, too.

 

Also, we'd take vacations to Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Smokeys. One year we went to Michigan to Macanaw Island; one year we went to Niagra Falls.

[Doran]

I wince sometimes to think that as a child I loved our flat, empty backyard. Not a tree in sight. Why would I love this? Because it meant our yard was the best neighborhood gathering spot for all sorts of games: kick the can, roller bat, kickball, freeze tag. We kids would play our brains out, and my mother would eventually bring out a tin of Charles Chips for us to munch on. Occasionally the ice cream truck would come by, but if not, there was a Baskin-Robbins right up the road from where we lived. 31 Flavors. My favorite was mint chocolate chip.

 

I loved getting fresh orangeades from the local drug store and having enough allowance money to buy some kind of candy whenever we went there. Bubble gum was a penny...or was it two?

 

I loved playing at the creek and playing "school" with my friends.

 

I loved riding my bike all over the place. It had a yellow banana seat and tassles on the handlebars.

 

I loved swimming. When my eyes turned the same color pink as my sunburned cheeks, it was time to head home. I'd run across the scalding hot blacktop of the parking lot in my bare feet yelling "Ow! Ooh! Eee! Aach! Ow!", until I made it to the car. Inside, my mother would have the air conditioner running full tilt. My lips turned as blue as the color of those ICEE slush drinks we were allowed to eat.

 

And, I loved going to my grandparents' house in eastern NC, where my cousins, brothers, and I played Red Light/Green Light had watermelon seed spitting contests and caught fireflies in jars.

 

Summer was the best!

[Storm Bay]

The beach.

[Jenny in Atl]

Cape Cod!!

 

 

 

[RoughCollie]

In Alabama, we had a lot of kids on our street, so we had a club. The naughtiest boy in the neighborhood wanted it to be a bad club. I wanted a good club. So we alternated weeks. This resulted in the boy and I accidentally spattering my sister with orange paint which did not scrub off in his swimming pool -- she was covered in it, to my Mom's dismay.

 

We used to ride our bikes all over the place (Air Force bases), play in deep in the woods (Germany), play kick the can and hide-and-go-seek at night (Alabama), go to the library daily (everywhere) and play made-up games (running away was our favorite). In Germany, we'd wrap blankets around 2 adjacent tree trunks to make houses in which to play house. We also cut worms in half and watched the halves wiggle away independently -- that fascinated us. We ate yellow mustard on hot dogs there for the first time, too.

 

We'd play on swings and slides. One summer we had a blast screaming as loudly as we could as we slid down the slide. I realized that we could do this to get sore throats so we could stay home from school, but I never tried that. We also played King of the Mountain on the large hill outside our apartment.

 

We played cops-and-robbers on our bikes. Sometimes we ran our bikes at top speed into the hedge around our yard, just for fun, with no inkling that we could be hurting the hedge. It was a matter of honor to hit that hedge hard and not make a sound. We climbed trees and practiced jumping out of them as a handy skill to have. The hedge had a hole in it which formed a large "room". We'd sit in there and spy on passersby.

 

We had a book of kids crafts and tried a lot of those. We went to the base theater on Saturdays and saw movies for a quarter. In upper elementary school, we had boy/girl parties sometimes in the afternoon (very innocent). We also sat around and told made-up ghost stories to one another, and played cards.

 

We stayed outside all day, except for coming home for lunch and dinner, which were at certain times, and the whole family sat around the table together, even Dad.

 

We went to the base pool every afternoon and my mom would embarrass us by squealing as she got into the water, and by swimming laps in front of everybody. We also played kick ball nearly every day.

 

Once my sister and I found a blackberry patch in the woods (Kentucky) and picked enough to bake pies for our mom and for a couple of neighbors. In Germany, we'd often pick wild blueberries.

 

One summer my mom signed us up for day camp, which I hated with a passion. During the long, boring afternoons, the counselors would let us play a juke box. One popular song had the words "yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy". My best friend's mother heard us singing it and thought her daughter was trying to tell her she was pregnant! The exclamation point is because that thought had never dawned on us. Back then, kids didn't know about s*x. We all thought women got pregnant by kissing men and that babies were born through the belly button.

 

Okay, more than you wanted to know.

 

RC

[Doran]

Cape Cod!!

 

 

Geepers! That sure is a modest house you all stayed in there at the Cape.

 

Just kidding! I'm sure it's a lovely place --- I'm sorry I've never been there.

[Laurie]

OK, here's my list:

 

1. The Bookmobile parking right in front of our house every two weeks! We lived in what used to be a very tiny suburb/village of the Twin Cities; thus, we had no library---yet. The county bookmobile just happened to park in front of our house. It was so great to run 30 feet and load up with books! I really think this experience drove me to love reading!

 

 

 

.

 

The bookmobile would park in my elementary school parking lot. I loved the bookmobile so much that I used to play bookmobile at home in the garage using a small stepladder for the bookmobile's staircase!

 

Right after school let out I always did some dumpster diving at my school...the teachers would throw out all kinds of unused workbooks, readers, etc. and I'd fill up my little wagon with all kinds of treasures! I loved to play school so it was great having the real supplies! I had my little classroom set up in the basement, and my mom played along with me from the kitchen upstairs while she worked. She was either the principal or the school nurse and played both parts with lots of enthusiasm!

 

But not to worry...I didn't spend all my time inside. I also liked riding my bike, picking cherries with my dad, and playing kickball with the big kids in the neighborhood (I had a real playground ball, so they always let me play!)

 

One of the best summers was when my big brother was dating the popsicle lady and I was getting my popsicles for free. ( Brother didn't tell me then that he had actually pre-paid for my freebies!)

[Mom0012]

Flashlight tag, the ice cream truck, playing in the woods, swimming at the beach, staying at my Grandmother's summer house on Long Island, going to a Greek restaurant for gyros and lemonade, biking into town and hanging out with my friends, and the 4th of July carnival are a few that come to mind.

 

It kind of makes me sad to type it out because my kids will never have any of these things since children aren't allowed this type of freedom these days, my Grandmother's house has been sold and both of my children have allergies. Of course, we do other fun things, but it does make me realize how much things have changed and how different my childhood was.

 

Lisa

[LizzyBee]

Playing hide and seek in the barn

 

Making hay - the smells of hay and sweat mixed together, passing around a jug of ice cold water, eating dinner at 10 pm after it was too dark to work outside anymore

 

Walking a mile to the bookmobile and getting melted tar from the road stuck on my shoes

 

Playing softball beside the cemetery during recess at Vacation Bible School

 

Riding the schoolbus to go to the Mennonite Vacation Bible School

 

Sitting up in a tree

 

My Dad yelling at me to get down out of the tree

 

Walking through woods and fields to my uncle's house

 

Family reunions - my cousin getting pooped on by a bird, playing a hilarious game that involved spoons and string and everybody laughing so hard

 

Hanging clothes on the line

 

Walking barefoot through the barn and pasture to get the milk cow in (yuck, yuck, yuck)

 

Milking the cow and squirting milk into the cats' mouths

[E_Edgerton]

We lived by a huge lake. Everyday in the summer, I would get my dog, my Snoopy fishing pole with matching tackle box, and make myself a peanut butter sandwich. I would suck down a juice box and be off. I had such amazing days and to be honest all of these wonderful outdoor memories are free of my parents, sister, cars, nothing but me and my dog, Bingo! I would catch fish, throw them back of course. Watch a family of beavers build their home, and try to catch a very elusive bull frog. I never did catch him. They were great times....I think even then I knew how magical times like that can be. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to remember and share them.