Schools are now out for summer, giving area youth much more free time to do those things they enjoy. But I have to admit, except for the ball games at the park and high school, the numbers of children I see outdoors during the summer is not what I would expect. What do today’s kids do during their summer breaks?
While my recollections of youth and summer vacations are getting a bit fuzzy, I do remember that I really looked forward to summers when I was a school-age child. And when summer vacations finally arrived, I just about lived outdoors. I think there were days and even weeks when the TV set was never even switched on to watch our favorite shows on the single channel we received - no, we didn’t have cable or satellite TV in those days, but the few shows wehad were better than the hundreds available today.
As I remember it - and my parents might remember a few things differently - I spent a good portion of my summer days either behind a push mower or on a small riding lawn mowercutting grass. For several summers, we mowed not only our own big yard but the church and school yard, including a couple of ball fields and a cemetery. Keeping that much lawn cut in southeast Missouri meant spending time mowing just about everyday, or so it seemed.
I also remember going fishing whenever I could. My father used to take us to a fishing hole on the creek across the pasture below my grandpa’s barn whenever he could. We’d tie the cane poles to the passenger-side door handles of the car and hold on to them through an open window to drive there. Then, after we walked across the pasture, we’d sit on the roots of a huge old cottonwood tree which hung out over the water and just drop in a line to catch blue gill andbullhead.
Once I was old enough, I rode my bicycle several miles from home to other fishing holes on a different creek, hoping to find the right spot to catch those really big fish I hadn’t caught on my grandpa’s farm. I don’t remember catchingfish near as well as the close encounters with water moccasins which also seemed to like the good fishing spots and weren’t much willing to share the creek banks with a kid. When I about stepped on them as they lay coiled up in the grass along the water’s edge or they came looping toward me on the water’s surface, I usually decided there might be another spot just about as good to drop in a line.
And I remember swimming lessons. Each summer, for a few weeks, a school bus would haul a group of us young kids some 12 miles to the nearest town with a public swimming pool so that we could take swimming lessons each morning. I think our moms sent us to make sure we didn’t drown if we happened to fall into one of the many fishing holesalong the creeks.
I remember being scared to death the first times I went into the pool because the water was up to my chin and sometimes a little bit deeper during my earliest lessons. And it seems I remained in the beginner’s group for several summers - I thought I’d never make it out.
To move up to the intermediate swimmer’s category, you had to be able to jump out into the deep end of the pool and swim all the way back to the side.Well, apparently I swam a little low in the water and looked to be drowning when I was actually dog paddling along. Every time I’d be making my way back, the life guard would stick in this big hook and pull me to the edge before I could swim there. I don’t think I would have ever passed the beginners’ level if I hadn’t gotten brave enough one day to shove the hook away from me and thrash my own way to the side of the pool even if they’d have to pump the water out of me when I got there.
But since that day I made it out of the beginners group, I’ve spent a lot of time in the water and even learned to become a decent swimmer. But much of that took place a few years later when I lived in California, where pools were closer and the Pacific beaches always inviting. Yet my favorite method of swimming to this day - well, since the last day I actually went swimming - is my underwater stroke. I used to dive in one side of the pool and swim its length underwater before coming up for air. I expect, now, any whale watchers at a pool would see me surface a little more often or I probably wouldn’t surface at all.
Though I didn’t get to help much until I was 11 or 12, I do remember hay hauling during the summermonths. My dad helped a few area farmers quite regularly. At first it was loose hay, loaded up in a wagon with a special rake and then hoisted into the barn loft with hay forks and a system of pulleys. Then, it was the small square bales. I remember too that stacking bales in the hay loft when it was in the upper 90s and humid outside was always a way to work up a good thirst.
In the fields, I could help pick up the bales and stack them on the hay wagon until they were a few layers high. Then I got to steer the tractor across the field while the men picked up and stacked the rest.
Driving the tractors across the field and then back to the barn was fun and made me feel like I was grown up and a big help, but for some reason I always got help at the controls when we went down the bank and forded the creek with a fully stacked wagon behind.
The other thing that comes to mind about summers was the way my dad used a window fan in the upstairs bedroom window to blow the hot air out and pull cooler night air into the other windows of the house. Sleeping to the sound of a window fan still brings back those memories.
And I remember when my dad got our first windowair conditioner. Air conditioning was quite a deal back then. Most folks didn’t have it in their cars or in their homes. In addition to carrying a bag of water for car radiators that seemed to boil over a lot more often, some folks would blow air from their air vents over a block of ice to help cool the insides of their cars when they went on long trips in hot country. Otherwise, we always had wing windows and lots of air blowing in our faces as we rode down the highways in the summertime - I do wish they would bring those wing windows back.
Now that I’ve started reminiscing, I could tell you of the church picnics, the night softball games, frog gigging, squirrel hunting, family trips and vacations and lots more but I’m still wondering what kids do today during their summer vacations. I just don’t see many outside working or playing. And if they spend their vacations sitting indoors playing games and watching TV, what will they have to remember about summers when they grow old enough to do a little reminiscing?
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Decatur Herald and the Gentry Courier-Journal. He may be reached by e-mail at rmoll @ nwaonline .com.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 06/09/2010