Saturday, May 23, 2009

Summertime

It's Memorial Day Weekend. Where I grew up that was the beginning of summer! The community pools opened (no one had private pools) and we were all there Saturday morning waiting for the lifeguard to come open up at 10am. The water was cold but we didn't give a hoot. It was summertime! Mothers would come down with sandwiches and command us to come out and eat a few hours later and then we'd get back in the water until closing. Sunday we did it all again! and Monday we'd be there first thing because we didn't have all day. We were going to be dragged out of the pool soon to be taken to a parade and then BBQ. Honestly, we just wanted it to be done with to get back in the pool. I mean the parade was nice and the food was good. But we couldn't wait to be handed our popsicles that we ate walking back to the pool. It would melt and drip all down our arms but we didn't care becasue we were going to jump in the pool to clean off.

After the first week we slowed down a bit and only went to the pool after lunch. All the moms took the babies in the morning. They were everywhere. Don't jump over here because of the babies. Children stop splashing like that you are gong to drown the babies. They would get on our last nerve. So, we gave them the pool in the morning and took it over in the afternoon. Now, when I say took over I mean took over. This was a very large pool, it was for an entire community but we monopolized it in the afternoons and played Marco Polo and had relay races and diving competitions and who can make the biggest cannonball splash competitions and who can keep their legs straight while doing a handstand under water competitions and on and on.

Before lunch it depended on which mom was watching us what we could do. One mom made us read. She made us read real books the funny papers didn't count. Ugh! It was horrible. And she knew all the books and would ask you things about it to make sure that you had actually read. Awful. Another mom would let us just watch TV and play quietly. We just had to be quiet because she was always tired (in my adult years I realize now she was always hung over). The girls would play Barbie and the boys would play GI Joe. It would all be good until the boys invariably launched an invasion on the Barbie townhouse and we'd scream and get kicked out fo the house to go be outside. Another mom didn't want us underfoot and we had to be outside and getting fresh air. So, we'd be on the playground or we'd play baseball using trees and shrubs as bases.

Summers were great. The morning set depending on the mom in charge, afternoons in the pool until sundown and then stay up late because who needs to go to bed early in the summer. NO ONE, there's no school! I wish I could do some of that again. Those were the days, the lazy days of summer.

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