Memories

Maybe it was my recent post about my childhood days at Vacation Bible School, and maybe it’s because the flow of these long days of summer reminds me of the endless days of summer past, but I’ve been remembering my fun times on my front porch.

Summers seemed forever when I was a kid- summer vacation stretched from Memorial Day until AFTER Labor Day.

Each morning began about the same. I had cereal for breakfast- “Sugar Pops are Tops” or “Frosted Flakes are GGRREEEAAAT!” Then I did my chores. At that stage in my life, say from age 7- 12, I wanted to live on a ranch, but in reality I lived in a small, ranch home in a new neighborhood. So, my chores didn’t involve cleaning stalls or roping calves, instead I made my bed, and then did the chore of the day which rotated from dusting to vacuuming, to washing the kitchen floor. Then I was released to play, all day, outside, without sunscreen or bottled water. And there was no such thing as complaining “I’m bored!”

I sat on the stoop of my front porch and waited for everyone else to come running. And we kept on running. In the morning, we were more active. We rode our “horses”, all of ours had coaster brakes, up and down hilly streets. We strapped on roller skates and tripped on the crooked sidewalks and yelled about breaking our mother’s backs. We played badminton until it got boring and many variations of tag- freeze tag was the best, then on to Red Light Green Light, Mother May I, and jump rope.  A swing set with monkey bars and a slide were fun, too, for frolic and pretend games.  If there were enough kids, we played kickball with the help of a few “ghost runners.”

We dashed inside for a quick lunch of peanut butter, or grilled cheese, once in a while there was egg salad, and then we rushed back out. It was important to be the first one back at it. At least it was to me. In the hot afternoons, we hung out on my front porch where it was cooler. The neighborhood dog wandered by on his rounds and cooled off with us.

Mostly it was the girls who gathered on the porch. The boys had baseball practice and forts to build.

We played jacks, and lots of card games- Old Maid, Spit, War, rummy, 500. When I was younger, I had a Gunsmoke ranch set with lots of plastic cowboys and Indians and horses and fences, and little campfires and branding irons and we it set it all up on the porch floor.

By the summer after 4^th grade we had grown more worldly. We collected and traded Beatles cards.  We browsed through teen magazines and cut out pictures of The Monkees- Davy Jones! If it were a rainy day, we whiled the hours with a board game- Monopoly, checkers, Go to the Head of the Class, and Sorry or Parcheesi.

But our favorite was The Barbie Game.

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Our Barbies watched us as we tried to avoid getting Poindexter for our boyfriend and hoped for the black slinky gown for the prom. So much hinged on the roll of the dice.

In the evenings, we walked around the block with our families, caught some fireflies, took a bath and went to bed in a hot room on sticky sheets. I read my library book. We fell asleep right away and rose with the sun to start it all again.

Did you have summers like this? If you did, do you think we would have played video games if they were around?