It would appear that winter is finally over up here in the northern hemisphere. Just about the time one would think it was tee-shirt and shorts time, another blustery day would blow through. And another ad infinitum. But now that the monsoon rains have finally abated we are having two warm days in a row. That means that Oklahoma will soon be having normal temperatures of 100F to 110F. But...that does not disappoint us summer people.
Now is the time one should close his/her eyes and remember back to about the 4th - 6th grade when the summer break from school was near. We didn't have to worry about a summer job as there was none. We didn't have to worry about connecting with hash tags or Facebreak (oops: Facebook) or checking our email. Mostly we just had to step out the door yelling, “I'm going down to Troy's" and get out of the yard before mom could tell you the things you should be doing.
New York City folk tell us about the various boroughs there, each with its special neighborhood. Our small town, and every town I later heard about, had the same thing. Our town was “divided" along elementary school neighborhoods, for the most part. Wellsir, except our particular one which was divided by the railroad tracks so we had two, instead of one, which made it hard to play with all your friends. But we managed when we wanted to.
If I quoted, “Whose woods these are I think I know." You (English speaking) would immediately know it was a poem about winter by Robert Frost. There are several poems about winter and blowing snow but I cannot recall a famous poem about summer. The anticipation of summer seems to make the poems irrelevant as the feeling of new life, new activities, freedom from the restrictive clothing is worth several poems. The one poem which may be relevant is: “ If winter comes, can spring be far behind," by Shelley. Even that famous quote concerns spring but we all know that school is out when spring is over and we can go outside again.
Each day had some magic sprinkly feel to it as the last day of school approached. Soon you could go barefoot every day and not just on Saturdays when Mom was too busy to notice. However, if you lived on one of the roads that were graveled, not dirt or paved, going barefoot to get to anywhere left a lot to be desired. After all, you would have had to wear shoes every day since about a million years ago.
The summer “vacation" was made even better because there was no such thing as “spring break" nor “fall break." Kids did get out of school for the Christmas Holidays which seem to last about five minutes. There were a few days out because of snow but many of those days were too bad for even the hardiest to actually stay outside long enough for it to count. Oh, did I forget to mention that very, very few of us actually had school shoes and play shoes. We had shoes. The athletic shoes kids wear today were called basketball shoes and a kid who stood four feet and not much couldn't find basketball shoes. Those didn't come in for a few lifetimes away.
Waking up on one of the early summer mornings was great although we didn't know at the time just how great. There were a few very rare times when plans were made and followed. In later years plans could be made because we better understood the concept of time. We could plan on how to sneak off to go swimming in the strip pits. We were told the strip pits were dangerous and should be avoided. That is like telling a bear that honey tastes bad so don't eat it. What could be dangerous in running for 30 feet to jump off a twenty foot high bank overlooking some deep water. Well, one hoped the water was deep. Some little kid would be encouraged to jump first to make sure it was okay for others to jump.
After a hurried, light breakfast of two or three eggs, several pieces of toast, half a pound of bacon and maybe just one bowl of cereal, one could go outside to see what the day would bring. If Lloyd Ray was making the whistling noise by blowing through his hands that would mean something would be going on a block away at his house. Probably there would be a keepers marble game that you were not supposed to play in. Whatever it was, it was going to be fun. I wonder what girls did in the summer.
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