Monday, June 20, 2016

Hazy, Crazy, Lazy Days Of Summer

It's here...the first day of Summer. It came around 6:30 pm and it brought with it a full moon on this solstice. That's a rare phenom that won't happen again for 70yrs.  I think I'll miss that one, so I made sure to take a good look at this full strawberry moon, as it's called.  The sky was hazy so the moon was shrouded in a milky covering.  The air is balmy with a slight breeze.  It feels like Summer with the temps in the 90's today and warm tonight.  I thought of the many things that remind me of Summer and the many things that make it feel like Summer has arrived.  When I was a kiddo it was the end of school and that first lazy day of just being outside the whole time.  No video games, tv, or other distractions.  The lawn sprinkler was the cooling off mode, or sometimes the public pool or a friends pool.  Oh that smell of coppertone!  Oh that smell of chlorine! Oh the first sunburn since sunscreen wasn't in our household.  We'd get tan eventually! Summer always was vacation time for our family.  My Dad bought a small house in Wisconsin about an hour away from our home.  He moved my Grandparents into it and he and my Aunts and Uncles worked together to make it a cute place for them and a good destination for us since there was a lake just down the road.  Dad and my brothers would go fishing and I learned how to swim in that lake.  I would stay with my Grandparents for at least a week during the Summer and enjoy my time with Grandma.  She and I had a good relationship and I loved her dearly.  She always made me doll clothes for my Barbies and there was always a new Barbie waiting for me!  She had a room that was full of the dolls she collected.  Heaven for a little girl!
Obviously this photo wasn't taken in Summer, but that's my Grandparents in the "house at the lake" as we called it.    Our Summer vacations also had many camping trips across the country.  I'll save those memories for another blog.  I'm sure everyone has their own way of ushering in this season.  Their own memories of Summer days.  I have many good memories of playing outdoors until it was dark, then watching and catching fireflies as my parents sat on the front porch and chatted with neighbors or my Aunt and Uncle who lived across the street.  Statue maker was another fun game we played as kids.  Time has replaced those childhood memories with memories of my own kids Summers.  We also spent time on trips and also time at my in-laws place that had a pond where my kids enjoyed swimming and fishing.  Again the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and the sound of laughter and roasting marshmellows over an open fire.  Their games of ghosts in the graveyard and riding their bikes to the public pool.  Scout camp and basketball camps.
This pic is of a Summer many years ago with my oldest son, Jack, and I at a lake near my Mom's house.  I was 8mo. preggo with #2 son, Craig.  Now they are enjoying their own Summers with their kiddos...the circle continues.  Hopefully it will be filled with good memories, the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and I know there will be roasting marshmellows waiting here at the Pines with YaYa and PawPaw during the lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Summer of 2016!  

10 comments:

gin said...

Great memories you have. How sweet it is when you see your grown kids enjoying their summers with their family the same way you and Jack did with them in years gone by.

Shady Del Knight said...

Hi, YaYa!

Happy summer 2016 to you, dear friend! A few hours ago I was sitting in the waiting room of a clinic waiting to have my blood drawn for routine testing. I looked around at the other people in the waiting room. They ranged in age from teenagers to the elderly. Every single one of them had their faces buried in an electronic device. Not one of those people carried with them a book, a magazine or a newspaper. Everything they needed, or thought they needed, was there at their fingertips inside their phones and ipads. Quite frankly it made me feel sad to see people of all ages enslaved by their devices and their insatiable need to keep in touch with each other minute by minute via social media.

Your post is like a breath of fresh air, reminding me of my own childhood. As I read it, the nose in my brain could smell the Coppertone tanning oil (and Sea & Ski) and the powerful, pungent odor of chlorine at swimming pools. Like you and like most other kids back then I spent most of my summer days and evening outdoors playing low tech/no tech games and sports, swimming and chasing lightning bugs. My mother had to practically beg me to call it a night and come back in the house.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your summer memories and seeing pictures of your grandparents and of you as a young mother. I don't know where the world is headed, but I feel genuinely sorry for today's young people. Most of them will never know the joy of living in a simpler time when free time was just that - free. We were not saddled with a technology that seems to demand 99% of our time and attention every day. Thank you, dear friend YaYa, for preserving the simple pleasures of life for your grandkiddos there at an oasis called Whispering Pines.

betty said...

Your grandparents looked so sweet! What wonderful memories to have of the time with them, as well as the other summer memories! I saw other people's pictures of the moon from last night, but we had some clouds, so I couldn't spot the moon here (or perhaps didn't know where to look for it, LOL :)

Enjoy the summer! We will blink and it will be over!

betty

Julia said...

Hi Yaya, even though I haven't been on Blogger lately, I wanted to wish yo a Happy Summer. You always have the stuff to make it a Happy Summer full of memories for your family. All the best.
God bless.
Julia

acorn hollow said...

Oh the sounds and smells of summer so many memories.
Cathy

Laurie said...

What wonderful memories! It took me back to a simpler place and time. Happy Summer!

Rick Watson said...

Summer is for water. We went to the beach a few times when I was a kid. But we went to the river often. I love the old pictures. I need to get my picture box down again:)

Kim said...

Your post takes me back to visits at my Dad's aunt and uncle's farmhouse. Dad's Aunt Alice sounds a lot like your grandmother. She always had the suitcase full of old Barbie's ready for me and usually a new outfit.

Susan Anderson said...

Wonderful memories of summer, and you triggered a lot of my own as well. Some are quite similar, but I wish I had gotten in on the fireflies! Never have seen one in California.

Chlorine and coppertone, though? Lots of that!

=)

Kay G. said...

Beautiful post with lovely memories of summer.
You are so gorgeous that you can show us a photo when you were 8 months pregnant!
My friend, you should have been a movie star!! :-)