Lazy Days of Summer
Don't you just long to be a child this time of year? Maybe not a child today, but the child you once were. Poor kids today are either at daycare in the summer or their days are so full of planned activities that the few weeks in June and July we now call summer are busy, busy, busy. By the time baseball, teeball, etc. is over it's time for camps and schools galore. If they are lucky they get shipped off to Grandma's for a week in there somewhere. August rolls around and it's back to school time.
I can't help but reminisce about the great summers when I was kid. Maybe I was lucky. My mom didn't work outside the home until I was eleven or twelve. Summers were great. You played with kids in the neighborhood, some younger, some older. From the older ones you learned great truths and then passed your own version of wisdom down to the younger ones. I'm an only child (a curse, I can assure you) so I always envied the kids with brothers and sisters. They had an allegiance to one another very difficult to come by on your own. Clubs and alliances were formed, but they changed week to week. One week you were the underdog, the next week a boss.
I remember once digging a huge crater beneath a piece of plywood in a vacant lot. I wonder how big it really was, because at the time it seemed a mansion. Apparently it was big enough to cause great concern by our parents that we would all smother when it caved in. What fun! We were brave. We were daring. And we had hours and hours for mischief.
I recall the evenings. Daddys came home. Shadows grew longer and the smells of various suppers began to emanate from the houses. One by one we were called in. If you were lucky, you got to go back out after dinner. There were huge games of hide and seek after dark. Even the older kids joined in at that time of day and I remember letting mosquitos suck me dry in my effort not to swat them as I hid in the bushes.
Summer seemed neverending then. September seemed far away. I learned all about sex ( I thought), to expertly shuffle cards, and that I _could_ jump off a roof and not die. Whatever diplomatic skills I possess today were probably learned in childhood summers as we argued over which group got the shade tree in one yard and who got the playhouse in another.
As I got older, summers changed. My mom worked and summers were something else. First kisses and rickety carnivals. Sneaking around and chasing boys. (Well that's what it was!) As I grew up, there were horrible summer jobs and even worse summer romances. I lived in an oilfield town and lots of guys found summer jobs there. Believe me, when you live in a small town, anybody from somewhere else is a treat. It all seems silly now. Maybe it wasn't even that serious then. We all knew that real life began again come September.
I try to find those old feelings now. I don a swimsuit (Oh God!) and park myself in a chaise out back with the latest book from my nightstand, a tall cool drink within reach. I want that timeless feeling so badly, but it doesn't come. All the things I _should_ be doing swim through my mind, ruining those hours of leisure. The pace has changed. There are so many things to do. Whatever happened to those lazy days of summer? Do they still exist? Anywhere? For anyone?