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?
Michelle posted in Writing @ 6:37 am | Viewed 2297 times
Jamie Says:
We had a neighborhood civic center with a huge playground, swings, baseball field, that sort of thing. I had a lot of fun there during my 9-12 age bracket. I remember I loved to read, too. The three of us (my two brothers and I) inherited that from our mother–we’ve all loved to read. I was very shy then, so books were a refuge! Jamie
Holly Says:
I road my bike and listened to the radio, sitting on a blanket in our yard and playing barbies with my friends, but what I remember most was reading and if I wasn’t reading, I was writing my silly little “happily ever after” stories or writing in my diary/journal.
Gosh I miss those bygone days! LOL Now though I pass down some of my memories in the form of using the very same blanket my sister and I used, for me and my kids to have picnics in the yard for lunch and let them run through the sprinklers and so on.
Isn’t it funny how growing up makes you feel like you’ve lost your childhood, until you have kids of your own…and then it’s like childhood comes back to you in vivid flashes that remind you what “fun” was? And the best part is passing that on to them.
Holly Says:
oops..”rode” not road! LOL
mary beth Says:
Just like you, my summer was almost always about the books and my local library’s summer reading program.
The books or playing outside with friends, making up games like KIDS TV where I wrote the beginning scripts and set the scene before we’d break off into improv news coverage over anything from tornado terror to the Iran hostage situation. If we were really lucky, my mom would actually come out and watch our pretend journalistic endeavors and give us grape FlavorAid.
Enjoy your summer, Michelle! Congrats on making it to the end.
Donna Alward Says:
I grew up on an apple farm, so I remember wandering the orchards, the smells and the heat and mellow sunsets…biking to the beach with my friends, but mostly spending time alone since my siblings were much older than me. I would read on our sunporch for HOURS. And I would do reports. Once when I was going through my horse stage, I did a report with illustrations on horses. It was handwritten and probably fifty pages long…and I was about 10.
Laurin Wittig Says:
Your summers sound just like my summers though I would add movies. Back then, oh so long ago, you could pay once and spend the whole afternoon watching a movie over and over, plus the library did free movie nights where I learned to love the B&W classics. I still save up movies and books for summer entertainment. I always take way more books than I could ever read when we go on vacation. Heaven forbid I run out of reading options!
Enjoy your summer!
kacey Says:
Books. Definately. And summer camp in the mountains. I loved summers
jeanne s. Says:
Books here too. A trip by car to the library once a week was our treat. Other than that just being able to sleep in (not as long as I would have wanted lol) and lazy days of just playing in our backyards.
MaryF Says:
Books and swimming here, too. My favorite memories are scents of both - going into the cool school library, which they opened one morning a week, and the scent of the sycamores and chlorine at the pool. Then there was going after dinner to the ice house and getting candy and soda and staying up late playing cards with my grandmother, then watching TV with all the windows open.
Kelly Says:
My favorite thing to do was read. Nancy Drew, Albert Payson Terhune, Judy Blume. Almost anything I could get my hands on. And I loved when the neighborhood kids would get together in the evening, all dressed in our pjs and played games like Eagle (sort of a war game / hide and seek hybrid we made up). And swimming! I really miss those days.
Tori Lennox Says:
I lived to read in the summer. And my friends and I would take our Barbies on field expeditions outside. *g*
Melissa Says:
I slept in A LOT. That was the best part. And I also read, read, read. All of Nancy Drew. The Oz books. Ramona Quimby. Beverly Clearly. Sigh…those were the days!
Crystal* Says:
Go to the library. The same library at which now I work. Amazing, huh?
I would always do the Summer Reading Program. I received stickers, semi-precious rocks, the whole she-bang. And it was the best.
I remember Nancy Drew. All of the “Oz” books. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. Pippi Longstocking.
Man, those were good times.
Grins*
Steph T. Says:
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle!!!! I love her books
