Summer is flying by too fast

Summer is flying by too fast
                        

Can it be August already? Yikes, summer is my favorite season, and it always flies by too fast. I had a lot of goals for this summer I have yet to meet. No big trips, but sometimes it’s the small stuff that matters most.

I have yet to sit out on the patio on my reclining lawn chair I rescued from storage and need to finish cleaning. I have yet to sit out on the porch for an entire evening, even though my husband, Joe, bought a new mosquito-repellent device. I have yet to go for a spin on my bicycle.

My summer life this year is pretty much in ruins.

When I was still living at home with my parents, sister and brothers, our summers were epic. We spent our days outside all summer long, probably because Mom didn’t want us in the house bugging her. We played in the yard, rode bicycles, helped in the garden, picked blackberries and went on hikes.

One of my favorites was exploring an abandoned strip mine. There were fossils and lots of them there. I could spend all day looking for them and one time had the severe sun burn to prove it.

The tree house Dad built us in the backyard was a great place to hang out and read books. Of course, the tree is long gone, but the memories remain.

I spent a lot of time on the front porch at home too, listening to AM radio and conjuring up imaginary trips to far-away places in my mind. The front porch swing was the vehicle to these vacations.

My parents could think of all kinds of reasons for us to leave the house. One time Dad suggested I get out of the house and go look for arrowheads in the garden. I didn’t stay out long. In the first spot I looked, there was a perfect arrowhead laying on top of the ground. I grabbed it and went back inside the house to show Dad. He probably should have sent me on a snipe hunt.

My sister and I spent a lot of time on the front porch on warm summer evenings. This was probably because in those days we could only pull in two channels on the old TV antenna. With our battery-operated record player, we sang aloud to our favorite tunes. Surprisingly, no neighbors complained, and one even told us she enjoyed hearing us singing from her house about a block away.

There wasn’t much traffic on our road then, and my sister, who is very observant, could identify any neighbor’s car by its taillights. She had a good reason to watch. Her boyfriend — currently her husband — lived about a mile up the road from us.

Sometimes the neighborhood boys would visit while we were on the porch. It was a different time for sure. Parents didn’t worry about letting their children out at night to roam the neighborhood on their bicycles.

This led to a favorite comment by our grandmother, who happened to walk out on the porch one evening. After talking to my sister and me, Gram noticed some movement off the porch. “Oh, hi, I didn’t see you down there in the bushes,” Gram said to one of the boys.

It’s so much fun to reminisce. But this summer we actually did more than that. On one favorite vacation, our parents took us to the National Air Force Museum in Dayton. It was a fun trip, and I think it fostered a love of airplanes and helicopters for me.

One of my brothers planned a day trip to take Dad and a few of us back to Dayton to relive the fun. It started out as a guys-only trip, but when it was opened up to the entire family, I went, of course.

I’m thrilled I got to go, but there are good reasons it could have been a guys-only trip. I felt left out of all the aircraft engine discussions. I had zero to contribute. Even my teenage nephew has a wealth of knowledge about the subject.

Summer needs to slow down. Maybe making a list will help. Top priority: heading to the garage now to finish cleaning up that reclining lawn chair.


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