The prompt for this week is Summer Time Fun. How did you spend your summers as a child? Did you go to summer camp? Did you stay with relatives or at home?
My mother had a job (one of the few women in our village who worked outside the home) and my earliest memory is that I was at home with my older siblings. I don't recall much, if any, supervision, but I suppose there was some in my younger years. By the age of 9 or 10 I was spending most of the summer with my best friend Janie.
We would go to the creek which was a good walk away, and try to catch tadpoles. We'd pack a bit of food and water and hike into the surrounding country, going as far as we could before exhaustion set in. I always used my dad's army canteen which didn't hold much water but was fun to carry.
When we were a bit older we set a goal of making it to a local Provincial Park but we never accomplished it. I checked today to see how far it was from our village to this park and it is 10 km. Google Maps estimates it would take 2 hours walking to reach it. No wonder we never made it!
I use to wander around on my own, especially when I was younger. We had a little playground near my home and I used to go there and swing for hours. That was where I got my first bee sting. I was about 10 years old and went home and phoned my mom to ask what to do. I remember she said to make a paste of baking soda and put that on it.
For some reason I also liked to collect bugs and bees in my very young years, and would happily spend hours in our yard and the neighbours' yards with my jars for collecting. Considering how freaked I am now by bugs and bees it is kind of funny.
Janie and I and a couple of other friends used to do a couple of things our parents had forbidden us to do - like walk over the railway trestle bridge and hang out at the deserted house on the outskirts of the village, which "hobos" were known to use. If you've seen the movie "Stand By Me" you have seen my childhood summers.
Credit: "Young Child In Nature" by chrisroll on FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Such beautiful memories! My mother grew up in Phoenix and throughout my childhood regaled me with tales of summer days spent hooked to her family's pool. As a child she created imaginary underwater kingdoms and when she hit her teen years she spent hours lounging by the water, attempting to perfect her tan. Her memories of the desert heat are visceral and have always been some of my favorite things to hear. I feel so connected to my mother by knowing these details of her past.
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