Don’t miss the best time to store up fun memories
- col-teri-stein
- May 22, 2025
- 778
It’s my favorite time of year, and it’s not going to last.
Once we observe Memorial Day, summer is officially here, and in the blink of an eye, Labor Day will be here too. We will all wonder where the summer went and regret the stuff we didn’t get to do.
Joe and I have taken some wonderful trips over the years, and those are fun to look back on, but some of the best times celebrating summer occurred in my younger days.
As kids we did not stay in the house much during the summer. I think there was a rule on that. In the 1960s and 1970s, your parents were not keeping tabs on you 24 hours a day.
Crazy things happened all summer long. There was one time I decided on my own, without consulting Mom and Dad, to plant pumpkins in the garden. Once they found out about it, I was ordered to dig up the seeds. Anyone who has planted pumpkins before knows the reason why.
I got all the seeds but one, and that plant took over much of the garden. We got a nice pumpkin from it.
There was a strip-mined area nearby. We spent hours there looking for rocks and fossils and building little outdoor playhouses, minus walls and roofs. I still use rocks and fossils as decor around the house. They are history; there is much to learn.
The front porch was often the center of activities, and we spent more hours there in the evening. That was where my sister and I spent time spinning records, 45s and 33s, on our portable record player. We sang at the top of our lungs, heard by neighbors about a block away who actually said they enjoyed hearing us.
I wish I had that energy again and that much free time. It was thanks to Mom. Despite the weekly chores we did, it was Mom who carried the family every single day with meals for eight.
Days staying overnight at our grandparents was a treat in the summer. We always asked Grandma if we could stay a second night, but we knew better than to let that information slip when we called for permission.
Grandma was the best hostess. She led us on hikes through the woods. They were so much fun. It was probably as much to wear us out as to keep us entertained.
After a few visits at Grandma and Grandpa’s, we were masters at playing the card game Rum. We also participated in dayslong Monopoly games. We watched episodes of “Rawhide” while pretending we were sitting on horses that were actually footstools. We’d pull them up in front of the television, and we were in on the cattle drive. Of course, Clint Eastwood’s character, Rowdy Yates, was our favorite.
Grandma was a good cook. She made lots of baked goods and sweets. Our favorite snack at Grandma’s was Kool-Aid and her homemade fudge.
Grandma and Grandpa’s house was surrounded by woods and a magical place to be. We picked blackberries and apples. Grandma taught us how to make pie.
Our other grandparents, on my mother’s side, used to take us on trips. It was real adventure. At the time “Trumpet in the Land” was new, and outdoor dramas were vacation destination spots. We went with them to see the “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” in West Virginia. We were supposed to see “Honey in the Rock” the next night, about the birth of West Virginia, but it got rained out. Of course, we saw “Trumpet in the Land” every summer.
One time Grandpa took a church-related trip to Pennsylvania, and he was in meetings during the day. We went along, and Grandma and my sister and I went out one afternoon to see “Mary Poppins” at a movie theater. It was a wonderful day.
I didn’t know Joe’s great-grandmother well. She was blind and spent hours sitting in her chair in her last years. At her funeral the pastor said he had asked her once what she did all day to keep herself occupied. She told him she spent a lot of time looking back and reliving her life and her best memories.
I wish we had asked more about her memories when we had the chance. But it’s not too late for us. This summer let’s make the kind of memories we would want to relive again and again.