I posted last time on 6/12 so posting on 6/21 has me in reverse! Being in reverse has me thinking of the past. Summer has arrived full force at the Pines. Our temps have hit the 90's along with humidity that makes the hair frizz. We are blessed with A/C to keep us comfy. Our son has a pool that he welcomes us if we want to take a swim. Tomorrow will bring some relief as rain arrives in the evening. We're heading to Chicago on Wednesday for a family reunion this coming weekend. What does all this have to do with the past? Well, last night I let Annabelle out for a final pee run around 10pm. I stood on the deck and felt the warm breeze and saw a light show from the lighting bugs, (or maybe you call them fireflies?) As a kiddo I remember summer nights like that with warm, humid air that didn't seem to bother us and oh those lovely lighting bugs! Out would come the old mayo jars or whatever we had, to catch them and watch them light up. Gross boys would smear them on their shirts to glow in the dark! Yuck! That memory brought back memories of the folks sitting on the front porch chatting with a neighbor or else my Aunt and Uncle who lived across the street while we played in the yard or across the street in an empty lot that became our baseball field of dreams. Always a game being played or hopscotch on the road. Not many cars came down our street then and riding bikes or playing in the road was OK. Dark time brought ghosts in the graveyard games or maybe statue maker. The boys in the hood used to tease me that the bats flying in the sky would fly into my hair and get all tangled up in it! Scared me enough to head for home! (Probably that was their intent!) One of the older boys bet me I couldn't hop up the front cement stairs of his house on one foot. I said I sure could! Not only that, but I could also do it on one foot with my eyes closed. And I did the hop but missed the stair and hit my head and ended up in the emergency room with stitches. Another story for another day! I think I was in the ER more than my 4 brothers ever were! Hot days running through a sprinkler, drinking from the hose, not coming home until the 6 o'clock fire whistle when off and we had to head home for dinner only to head out again until we were called in for the night. We didn't have A/C in our home, but that old GE oscillating fan was a welcome relief. Mom and Dad eventually got an air conditioner in their bedroom and us kids would camp out on really steamy nights. I was blessed with good friends, a safe neighborhood, a good family, and lots of good memories that come quietly and sweetly on a hot humid night as I'm back to my future with lighting bugs to greet me at the Pines.
6 comments:
Hi, YaYa!
What a delightful, nostalgic post, dear friend! No pictures necessary, because your words planted vivid images in our minds, especially those of us who who share the same experiences. Yessum, here in the Mid Atlantic East, we also called those insects lightning bugs rather than fireflies. I loved summertime dusk when those magical lights started to appear floating four or five feet above the ground. Kids in my neighborhood also captured them in glass jars, myself included, but I always released them unharmed after a brief examination. You are lucky to have lightning bugs there in Ohio because, since moving up here to my neck of the woods, I have not been fortunate enough to be treated to a light show. I share your memories of everybody being outdoors on their porches chatting, kids playing outdoors and staying outdoors until they absolutely had to go back inside or risk upsetting their folks for disobeying orders. No video games or other electronic devices to keep them indoors living life as a couch potato as is sadly so often the case nowadays. Throughout my youth, our house was not equipped with air conditioning. We kept the windows open most of the time and relied upon electric fans to help us sleep at night. I too frequently drank from the garden hose, which was a very unhealthy thing to do. My cousins, friends and I also slept outdoors in tents on warm summer nights - all of the above wonderful memories of happy (happier) years. Your story about getting injured accepting a challenge to hop up the concrete stairs surprised me. You must have been a tomboy, Kathleen.
Your collection of fond memories reminds me of one of my favorite summer songs, one that refers to the bugs we have been discussing. It contains the lyrics:
Look around you - there's a rainbow in that watermelon sky
And the twinkling of a million fireflies
.Please listen to "Happy Summer Days" by country pop singer Ronnie Dove, a top 30 hit in the summer of 1966:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyX8T8pJr4A&list=RDGyX8T8pJr4A&start_radio=1
Gosh, in a little over two months, Ronnie will turn 90 years of age!
Have a safe trip over to the family reunion and back, dear friend YaYa. I hope to meet up with you again on the 20th of July when I return to celebrate my 17 year blog anniversary!
Hi Yaya! Thanks for sharing your great summer memories and that beautiful sunset! Glad you are having a good summer. See you again soon!
I ran the dirt road with my friends. Came in when my mom out the porch light on. No street lights where I lived. I loved catching fireflies and putting them in a jar and watching them at night until I went to sleep. Released them the next day and did it all over again. I am waiting for the light show to appear in the woods behind us. I love watching them blink. Safe travels to Chicago. Janice
Enjoy the lighting bugs (what we called them too) we would do jars with air holes and in the morning the poor bugs would be dead. How I love seeing them and we have had a lot this year.
Enjoy your reunion and safe travels.
Cathy
Oh yes, I well remember the lightening bugs! If you see them now, it means you are a good steward of the environment, so good for you! Ah yes, my youthful days with no A/C. I am really thankful for it now!
"...good memories that come quietly and sweetly on a hot humid night..." Absolutely and perfectly evocative. Your description of your hot summer nights as a child are so very similar to mine. Chasing and catching lightning bugs, playing graveyard, statues..."red light, green light...hope to see a ghost tonight," LOL. I know even my own son didn't/doesn't know these games we played. Growing up we were incredibly isolated - out in the country, on an 80-acre farm and our only neighbors (if you consider a mile or so away a "neighbor") being relatives. It was a rare occasion when us kids were able to get together in the summer evenings - and it was always just a mitt-full of cousins - but it was so memorable. The summer days, though, were full of traipsing through the woods, riding bicycles for miles and miles (no worries of traffic or ill-doers) and life was simple and good. Thanks much for the trip down memory lane. I'm sure there will be lots of that sort of reminiscing this weekend for you...hope you enjoy every second of it! Weather-wise, we had 3 days of record-setting heat...and today we are back to the interminable rain and highs in the low 60's. Yikes. Enjoy your reunion!!!
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