Summertime

Summertime. Funny how it returns every year and it is always magical. Some of my most favorite things happened in the summer. I mean my most favorite lifetime memories. You know the ones that you can close your eyes and it feels so real…

My earliest summertime memories are of being about 4 years old. My neighborhood buddies and I played outside until dusk…catching lightning bugs and tadpoles. The Good Humor man would come and we would get Push-Up orange sherbet pops and collect the plunger bottoms. We would take turns having sleepovers. I remember getting penny candy wax bottles and sucking the juice out of them, sitting on the roof watching fireworks and going to the store to pick out my little plastic pool covered in fishies.

In later elementary years, summertime was still magical. Playing in the sprinkler hoses, Mom’s vegetable garden, swinging and singing outside for hours upon hours, the windows open and the smell the morning would bring, juicy watermelon slices, ice cold Nehi sodas out of the general store refrigerator and collecting the bottle caps, but the games of badminton in the backyard were a personal favorite. I could play for hours.

With time, summertime brought amazing trips to stay with my grandmothers. Grandma would plan trips into Washington D.C. She worked downtown and was the best tour guide around. She showed me every inch of that city. I loved that…the way she would walk and weave around that town. Planning our days. We did it all. She bought me my first little camera and we took pictures in front of every monument and museum. At night we would stay up very late eating ice cream, drinking Pepsi and watching M.A.S.H. We took long walks around the block and talked about people’s front yards and flowers. She would help me look for the toads in her backyard that I deemed my friends. She had a fabulous patio with big comfy cushions that we would lay on out in the shade under the breeze of the huge trees that filled the yard.

Eventually, I would make my way to my other grandmother’s home for another “vacation”. We would stay up so late, talking, eating nachos, playing cards and listening to music. During the days, she would sit poolside at her neighbor’s home while I would swim for hours. We would sit outside in the backyard at the picnic table under the huge tree and have lunches. We would go down to the pier and crab, drive in the evenings to get enormous hot fudge sundaes, play bingo at the local hall and spend an hour or two taking an afternoon nap… Life was very full and busy in a simplistic and wonderfully lazy way. We planned our days.

As I got a bit older, summertime still meant sleeping in and staying up late. It still meant filling the days with all those summertime things. Eventually we got an in ground pool in our backyard and that was awesome. Mom spent days canning from her harvest in the garden. I can still smell those tomatoes being skinned. Mom took us to the orchard to pick fresh peaches and there was nothing sweeter than those right off of the tree. Grandmommy would take me to the beach and planned fabulous family crab feasts. Grandma took me to the theater and planned yummy family cookouts. Granddaddy had his sailboats and would scrub them preparing for our daytrips where he served us his packed lunches on the Chesapeake. Though the “plans” became greater, the simplicity of the time was still the greatest.

Soon enough, summer would be filled with teenage things, like dating and Downtown Annapolis evening trips for ice cream and walking the docks. Sitting on the sea wall and planning our lives. Part-time jobs would be held and bussing tables or taking pizza orders filled partial days. Day trips to the beach with friends, washing cars and sleepovers while watching hours of MTV. Cheerleading camps and dance camps occupied Grandmother visits.

I remember the first time I realized I had reached “adult” summertime. Working 9-5 – realizing that my days had been filled for me. It felt horrible. I longed for those younger times. Those days that I knew I had 3 months of pure fun coming my way. Escape from the ritual of schedule was over. Unless I had accrued enough vacation time, I would not be anywhere anymore except at my desk. My grandfathers passed away and my grandmothers aged. We would talk about those summers and what they had meant to each of us. The magic they cast. The bond they had formed for us.

Once I had my children, I was thrilled to return to the summertime of my childhood. I quickly introduced them to the lightning bug jars, plastic pools, popsicles, watermelon, Sparklers, and hours of swinging in the backyard. I returned to local orchards to pick fresh fruit and taught myself how to make peach butter and strawberry jam. We would make beach trips, fishing trips and returned for crabbing expeditions on Grandmommy’s pier. We would take the metro into D.C. to see the Washington Monument, have a picnic and throw a Frisbee around. I wanted to share the magic of summertime.

Soon my children were each taking their own individual trips to my mother’s house and creating their own memories. Games of Wiffle ball, trips to the park, walks to the ice cream store, swinging on the porch swing, playing Rummy, buying plastic golf sets and other silly summertime toys, taking walks around the block with their grandmother and planning their days. Forming their bond, casting their magic.

Suddenly, the kids grew older. My grandmothers passed away. Our summers became filled with camps or sports for the kids. They planned their days. Wrestling camps, dance camps, cheerleading camps, Vacation Bible School camp, Lacrosse camps, football camps…if they had a camp for it, they wanted to sign up! Schools got out later. Schools started earlier. Spring sports were played into July. Fall sports began in July. We started searching our calendars to squeeze in when we could take a week to go on vacation, let alone make trips to stay with their grandmothers. No magic.

Today as I put my third son who is nearly 12, on a bus for a camp – I felt sad. Not just because he was going away alone for a few days – but because it was another chunk of time that is gone from our summertime. And each of the kids will want to attend a camp – thus another chunk, and another chunk and another chunk.

What I loved about summer had nothing to do with camps. My memories were of time spent with loved ones, who shared themselves with me doing simple tasks but creating such vibrant happy lifelong memories. I don’t long to return to the cheerleading camp that I went to in high school. I don’t long to return to the2 week dance camp I attended. What I long for is a late summer evening to play cards with Grandmommy and Granddaddy or watch M.A.S.H. with Grandma curled up on the couch. I don’t long for the 4-H club camp when I made a Popsicle birdhouse. I would give anything to be on Grandma’s patio on the big cushy chaise lounge having a Pepsi or at the picnic table in Grandmommy’s backyard spitting our watermelon seeds on the ground.

I am going to try to fill my summer doing those things with my family. Instead of squeezing them into our camp schedule – those things have to come first. Summertime shouldn’t be about filling their time with busy organized activity. It should be in finding the time to relax and helping them appreciate their youth because truthfully they are too young to understand – so it is my job to help them - Finding animals in the clouds, playing a game of backyard Wiffle ball, crabbing with chicken necks on the dock or playing Rummy on the patio in the evening while nursing homemade root beer floats. Soon enough they are going to realize that they haven’t accrued enough time to take a week off for vacation. I think tomorrow I’m going to buy a Badminton set…