Working in the world of education, even on the fringe like I do, has its advantages, one of them being summer vacation.
While we have the option to work during the summer, this year finds me taking the time off instead. And it finds me thinking of things to do for the next two months to make sure that the time is well spent. I’ve made a mental “to-do” list, things that I can get done around here, as well as an actual list of writing prompts I’ve thought up to keep my chops up. It occurred to me that when you’re a kid and you leave school on that long awaited last day, you don’t worry about stuff like that. You have all the time in the world. You don’t need to make plans to keep yourself busy or “productive.” You just live in the moment, each day, doing whatever for as long as summer lasts. Never worried about “being productive.”
That got me thinking about those days of my own youth and how we spent our summers.
I grew up in the village of North Chemung which is several miles outside the city of Elmira, New York. Some of you probably know it better by it’s historical and fictional name, “Hammond’s Corners.” Growing up there, the world, hell, the county seemed such an enormous place. Our world, though, was small back then; limited to where our bicycles could take us, which rarely more than a mile from the center of town. That suited us fine since everything we needed was right there anyhow.
The two main roads through town converged into a “T.” Just a stone’s throw from there stood the United Methodist Church and the former schoolhouse which was turned into a small country store a few decades before. Each building served as the social hub of sorts for the town, but it was the store, open seven days a week, that saw the most activity. It was where you looked for your friends first if they weren’t home. If you’d made a dollar picking up cans or saved your quarters from running to the store for a neighbor, you could treat yourself to a comic book and still have change for a popsicle or maybe some penny candy.
The village was, and still is, surrounded by hillsides and creeks where the occasional ramshackle fort was built,constructed of scrap wood, plastic, and any other materials that could be scavenged. In the creeks we built dams that rivaled the efforts of the local beaver population, sometimes jumping in to cool off from the heat of the day. Hours were spent on dirt piles, building intricate roads and tunnels for our Matchbox cars to travel. BMX rides and races were held on homemade tracks in the woods and roadside ditches. Games of hide and seek, football, baseball and much more.
There was a hundred things to do any given day and we did our best to do them. Sometimes we did nothing at all.
Once in a while, military skirmishes of great importance were fought in a nearby pine forest. The group was divided up into teams and then dispersed througout the area and, after an agreed upon time, the fight was on. Of course back then, kids could carry very realistic looking toy guns without setting off a national panic and we stalked each other with our plastic M16s and pistols tucked into Army surplus camouflage clothing. The game worked on an honor system of sorts, wherein the would be shooter would be required to positively identify their target before loudly proclaiming, “BANG! I GOT YOU _____,” before tearing off elsewhere, lest the hunter become the prey. The “deceased” was required to then return to a home base of sorts to sit out the remainder of the war.
And shit got serious out there too; young soldiers went to great lengths to blend in with their surroundings. Foliage from the area was jammed into hats and belts. Snipers were buried by their comrades in pine needles and other debris, like a living brushpile, but pretend-deadlier. We had real winters bck then, which meant ticks weren’t a concern and Lyme disease was something that only affected that years’ citrus crop.
If we’d made arrangements in advance, we wouldn’t have to come in when the porch light came on. Many a summer night was spent sleeping outdoors, either in a pup tent in someone’s back yard or, as we got older and more daring, in the woods somewhere. We’d stay up talking late into the night about the usual adolescent topics, as well as hunting, fishing and such. Occasionally the talk turned to current events; would we be drafted to fight the Soviets should World War Three break out tomorrow as it did in the movie “Red Dawn?” In the morning we’d be up and on our way home for breakfast and ready to start a whole new day, a whole new adventure.
As often happens, we grew up, we got bigger and our world did too. We got jobs, drivers licenses and cars which meant we could spread our wings. Suddenly a trip “to town” wasn’t a special event, it was an average day. We’d still gather for a pickup game of football or hockey games on the pond behind the fire station, but over time those too dwindled.
Funny, there was never any sense or recognition that this was it, that this period of our life was over. We just sort of faded away, one by one, like you see in the movies, as we went out on our own and