For me, as with every kid kid, June was the month of freedom. School was officially over and that meant it was summer time. The last day of school was our primer for that yearly adventure and as it crept closer, the anticipation always overtook us. We felt like there were endless possibilities and days that stretched to the horizon. Every single summer day felt like a Saturday morning.
This morning, I find myself reliving those days of long lost youth. As the sun rises across our back garden, I can’t help but long for those adventure filled days and long stretching summer nights. Join me as I share Summer Shenanigans: From Epic Bus Battles to Back-to-School Buzz!
Wild ‘n Wet Water Battle
Officially, the summer did not start for us, as kids, until we had our annual school bus water battle. Yes, you heard that correctly, annual school bus water battle. There were about half a dozen of us who were always the last ones on the bus. We had arranged with our bus driver, who happened to be a family member, to have a water battle for the last few of us on the bus. Our bus driver only had one stipulation, no water balloons. Mainly due to the fact that one misfire and it could hit her and cause an accident.
Prepping for the event meant finding every object that could be used as a water gun. We had to pack as much water into the few things we could find. This was a one-shot deal; no refills allowed.
We would all spread out on the bus, to not draw attention to what we had planned. Patiently we waited for the majority of the kids to get off the bus and as we hit the ten mile stretch of dirt road that was the ride for the rest of us, we slowly found our
places on the bus and pulled our weapons of water destruction. The first few shots were always “friendly” and then the gloves came off.The floor of the bus had water rushing in every direction from the curves and pot holes in the road. The seats were more water than vinyl, and each of us looked as if we had jumped into a creek fully clothed. By the end of our water battle, even the bus driver ended up somewhat wet.
Grandma Lizzie’s backyard and river fun
When we were younger, we stayed with our Grandma Lizzie. I have briefly talked about her in the previous posts. Growing up, she never had running water in the house and the bathroom was an outhouse. As a kid, we never thought much about it. Actually, for a long time, I thought it was sort of natural. During the summer, it was my sister and I and usually our cousin Bobbie. Mom would wake us before she left for work and take us to Grandma Lizzie’s house at 6am.
Our days were spent running around her property, playing in the gardens and in the various bushes she had. But the most fun we had was digging at this stump that had been there for as long as I could remember. This was our central play area, action figures, matchbox cars, and digging implements were always scattered around. We had tunnels dug around the stump for escape routes for our imagination filled playtimes. That stump ate more of our toys than I care to remember. I bet, when they finally dug it up, someone got a good collection of old Star Wars action figures.
Many times, during the summer months, we would also spend the nights with Grandma Lizzie and Grand daddy Roscoe. On these summer nights, we often were treated to being taken to the river to swim and play. Now, I can’t swim. In fact, I actually learned at Boy Scout scamp, one summer, and promptly forgot how. Taking us kids to the river served several purposes. It allowed us to get out of the house and play (to wear us out) and to bathe. It was also a nice way to cool down in the hot southern summers.
Ahh, the long lost tradition of lay-a-way. If you are not familiar with the term, it was basically a way of being able to get a number of items and put them on hold. You, then, made payments on them a little at a time, until the balance was paid off. It was about the only way that lower income families could buy clothing, goods, and other things they couldn’t just buy at once. In this case, it was often school clothes and supplies
Somewhere around July 4th, my mother was already planning for the fall school year to start. She would pile my sister and I into the car and head to Hills Department store. Here, we would spend a better part of the day going through the clothes department looking for school outfits for the next year. Mom would start with my sister in the girls department. Then, when done we would go to the boys department.
The actual shopping for clothes was somewhere between painfully tedious and Uber excitement, depending on who was getting to shop and when. The wait for all of the back to school goodies we had was intensely worse. I would dream of the backpack that I was getting and what clothes I would wear on what days the first week of school.
When August arrived, we knew that it was time to get our lay-a-ways out. This usually happened around the first of August and we would get home with our respective boxes and bags and the unwrapping frenzy would begin. Then we had to try on the clothes to make sure we had not grown since we put them in.
I would spend the remaining weeks before school packing and re-packing my backpack. picking out which notebooks would be for what subject, and ensuring that my pencil case had enough pencils, erasers, and knicknacks to keep me busy. What I loved most was trying on all the outfits and seeing how I could coordinate them to create outfits. I would envision just how surprised my friends would be seeing me in my new clothes. How they actually reacted is a topic for another article.
Share your summer shenanigans
Summer is probably one of the most amazing times for most kids. It is the time in which you get away from people telling you what to think, how to act, and think about things. It was our time, our time to unplug and just be kids. Explore our environment, create elaborate fantasies we could act out, and which would last forever. It was a time where two months seemed to fill an eternity, that is until you drew ever closer to time to go back to school and that fantasy started to darken and slip from us.
So, there you have it! A glimpse into my wild and sometimes wet summer days as a kid. What about you? Did you have any epic summer adventures you’d like to share? Did you have your own version of a water balloon fight, or maybe a special place like Grandma Lizzie’s backyard? Dig up those memories and toss them in the comments below – I’d love to hear all about your summertime shenanigans!
Gay in the CLE 