The Last Day

All over the county, you can hear the screams of excitement from children and the screams of despair from parents. For today, my friends, is the last day of school. For the kids, at least–I have one more day.

I remember as a child being excited about the last day, because it meant I could SLEEP IN. It had nothing to do with the lack of homework and so on, it was the ability to sleep as much as I wanted. During the summers, when I lived on a military base, my friends and I would walk to the pool, swim for two hours, and then I’d go to the library and check out books for the next hour. One year, I started in the middle grade/YA section and just started with the authors beginning with the letter A. Over the summer, I worked my way down all the way through the alphabet. You name it, I read it. I remember reading Mary Poppins and thinking: That was nothing like the movie! Mary Poppins was EVIL!

Reaching further back, I remember the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books, Amelia Bedelia, and anything by Judy Blume or Roald Dahl. I used to read and stay up late and my mother would let me…up until she and my dad went to bed. My grandma would let me go through the books in her attic, and I read Nancy Drew, and A Girl of the Limberlost, along with Anne of Green Gables. Summers, for me, were all about the books.

What about you? What was your favorite thing to do over the summer?