A Little Summer Nostalgia

We were up early, packed lunches, and spent the day at beach, riding bikes, or at the local park or pool. Some days, I mowed lawns and did other small jobs to earn pocket change. We were never lacking for things to do. And drugs, guns and violence were not part of the culture. I miss those days.

Our family "vacation" was a week spent at a small rented cottage by a lake, just a few miles from home, and just a short walk to a nearby amusement park. We thought we'd gone to heaven!

I remember summer childhood but my sense of time was the opposite of the OPs. Days lasted a long time. Summers lasted forever, were like epic movies. I have summer relationships and experiences that seem like big chucks of my life. They were fleeting only in retrospect.

Playland at the Beach, Fleischhaker Pool, Golden Gate Park, Union Square, Baker's Beach, DeYoung Museum, the Planetarium, Palace of Fine Arts, Woolworth's on Market Street, the Panhandle, Sausalito, Mt. Tamalpais, Russian River, Rio Nido, Guerneville (pronounced Gernie-ville), Santa Cruz Board Walk.

Isn't summer in SF not actually June-Aug?

I lived there a year and I could never anticipate when it would be swimming pool or beach weather. Basically it was never beach weather even when it was sunny! Santa Cruz - yes! that seems like a great place to be a kid.

Dressed up on Saturdays to go downtown for lunch at the Boston Store cafeteria to pick out whatever we wanted. Then off to spend some hard earned change.

The worst Saturdays were the ones that ended up in St. Anthony's church for confession.

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".

I remember my Aunt Connie driving us to the beach in her turquoise Studebaker.

I loved sitting on the back porch after dinner with my dad, listening to the baseball game on his transistor radio. We drank cherry or orange soda, and ate Wise Potato Chips.

R7 Milwaukee?

I lived in San Francisco and would visit my cousins in Milwaukee over the summer. My aunt would kick us out of the house right after breakfast and tell us she didn't want to see us until dinnertime. We'd ride our bikes, hang out with friends, swim at the local Y, and buy popcorn at Schuster's in Capitol Court. Nobody worried about abductions, riding without a helmet, or much of anything except mosquito bites.

I was a bat boy for our city's Little League organization. When I was old enough to make the cut, I played for one of the teams. Even back then, I knew which team I wanted to play for!

NJ or PA, r10?

On the last day of school, the city put up the swings, the sliding board, seesaws, monkey bars, and the spinner, filled the swimming pool, put out the park benches, and turned on the drinking fountains. It was a great day in our neighborhood.

R13, Pennsylvania, The Keystone State! We lived Little Italy, and how I miss those days, and my dad.

we had hippies as park counsellors - every single one of them was fab and they had sexy hippy boyfriends visiting.

we had transistor radios and portable orange and cream plastic battery operated record players.

sorry for the poor adjective word order, grammarians.

I remember filling jars with a few blades of grass, and catching fireflies in the jars. We also used to throw tennis balls in the air when the bats were flying, and trying to hit them with broomsticks when they dive bombed the tennis balls. So brave. So stupid!

Homemade ice cream at Buddy's Ice Cream Shoppe , fives cents for a giant scoop.

Nehi Grape Soda, 8 cents a bottle.

we made candles, rings and things, creepy crawlers, and dip flowers, pot holders, popsicle stick I don't know whats, spin art, "indian" plastic string macrame, jute macrame, indian bead, bugle beads, totem poles, feather headdresses, tie dye,

we went into the woods and built dams on the creeks and then destroyed them to make "tidal waves"

we went to the quarry

we went to the school library which was open in the mornings and was cool

i'll let others fill in on all the active games they played Im sure it was the same. My favourite was twilight bike chase with "entire neighbourhood" as the boundary.

Bloomfield or South Philadelphia, r15?

It was downashore every Summer once school was, out until the weekend before school reopened, until I hit junior year. A trailer(no wisecracks) outside of Atlantic City, NJ. We truly were on our own very day: riding bikes(especially into the nearby little town for sodas and comic books; swimming at the HUGE pool in the trailer park; exploring "things" the older boys just HAD to show us(wink, wink); running in the "smoke" from the DDT sprayer that came by weekly(cough, cough.....) When we went to the beach it was Ocean City, what a blast. A Scotch Cooler was packed with all sorts of stuff for lunch and snacks, but when the ice cream guy came by(with his dry ice backpack loaded with treats) we always got some. On the drive back, a stop at a local farm market to load up on summer goodies: tomatoes, peaches, corn( a sign was always posted with the time the corn had been picked) More family would show up on the weekends, and there'd be a big cookout, and games and stuff far into the night(if the skeeters weren't too bad) Summer lasted forever, except the final week. We knew we'd be heading home and back to school, but there'd always be next year(until there wasn't) Ah Youth!

I grew up on the Jersey Shore. We'd have our group of friends and spend the whole day on the beach (After out stories), slathered in No-Add oil! Some days, we'd spend on the boardwalk, on rides... At night we'd have epic street games- like Hide and Seek and Ghost. As we got older, I'd have to work, and after work, I'd sit on the beach and get high with my friends. Growing up on the Jersey Shore was the best. Also of the neighbor's rented their houses to "City" families, so every year, in the summer we'd have about ten "city" kids on the block, for three months. I morn for all the city kids who can't walk to the beach...

South Philly, R23

Mister Softer Ice Cream Trucks

Ice Cream Socials

Neighborhood Church Carnivals

Neighborhood Block Parties

Neighborhood schools had arts and craft activities on Mondays and Fridays. I must have made a million of those nylon loop potholders on the blue metal frames, and stashed them away for Christmas gifts. I made a special red, white,and blue one for my mom, a gift for her July wedding anniversary.

r26 Have you been to any local diners or luncheonettes lately? Atlantic Pizza is closed for 3 weeks, and we're all jonesin'.

I had a bike with a banana seat. I clothes-pinned index cards to the spokes so that it made a noise when I rode.

There was a sense of freedom. We left the house and rode all over the neighborhood, returning to the house for lunch and dinner. We'd hang out at the local store and eat all types of crap: Snickers bars, Wacky Packs gum and drink Coke (the original recipe).

Sometimes when we were lazy, we would just lay inside watching reruns of That Girl, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. We could watch reruns all morning and then in the afternoon, we could watch old movies full of ladies in fashionable clothes and men who were men and they acted out their stories in Art Deco apartments in New York City. Then my mother would yell at us that we were ruining our health and needed to be out in the sunshine and fresh air.

Sometimes my mother would send us on "days out" sponsored by the town council. This basically consisted of taking us to a local beach and dumping us there with a couple of college kids as supervisors. I hated that because I always got sunburned. The beach has never been my ideal trip.

For two weeks every Summer, we would get in the car and take a trip to see my mother's relatives in the South. My father did all the driving and it was so hard to get him to stop. "Gotta pee" wasn't a phrase he understood. I loved these trips because I could stare out the window for hours and watch the world go by. I loved the change of scenery and seeing gas stations and restaurants whiz by. When we finally got my father to stop, the rest stops had machines in the men's room. The machines had cologne you could squirt out and also aspirin and condoms (although they weren't labelled as condoms). One time I asked my mother what the machine in the women's room had and she said, "Ladies products." I thought she meant they sold plastic hair rollers or bobby pins. This trip was always the best part of the Summer.

R25 Bronzie, My Man.......

We moved from Philly when I was twelve. My dad got a job with with GE in NW Pa. But I do get back to see relatives, and favorite cousins. And there is ALWAYS time for great pizza and those fab Philly steak subs.

We'd usually spent most of the day in the forest behind my house playing make-believe stories. The forest could be anything you wanted it to be. We'd also go fishing sometimes. We'd walk or ride our bikes everywhere. On very hot days, we'd go to the lake, to a freezing cold river fed by mountain streams, or to a friend's house who had a pool. At night all the neighborhood kids would get together and play hide-and-go-seek or kick the can. These "epic" games would last until your parents dragged you inside for the night, usually by 11:00 pm. We were barely inside the house for the whole summer.

R30 Every summer my uncle would pack my aunt and his six kids in his Caddy, and visit for a week. He couldn't be bothered to stop for pee breaks unless he had to go. As soon as they got to our house, everyone flew up to the bathroom. Back in those days we were a one bathroom household. How ever did we manage?

All the kids in the neighborhood would jump on their bikes and follow the truck the city sent up and down the streets fogging for mosquitoes with DDT. If you pedaled like crazy you could actually catch up with the truck and get right into the cloud.

Why we're not all dead is a mystery.

I will never forget the summer when our "rich" neighbors had an in-ground swimming pool installed, and we we invited over to swim !

Mornings, we rode our bikes to the river and played among the rocks. After a stop for soft-serve cones at Foster Freeze (or a hamburger if we had recently scored our allowances, we'd spend the afternoon in the library and the evening with the books we checked out.

OMG R34, that is so hysterically funny! 😅

Now they go through our neighborhoods spraying in an effort to prevent West Nile Virus. They post days in advance, and advise us to close all windows, and stay indoors if possible.

I don't understand one thing r36 said. The individual words make sense, but grouped together they turn into mush.

I had no problem understanding or relating to r36.

Maybe you're too young to understand the simple life r38

r26/r31 Welcome anytime, friend. If it wasn't raining right now I'd be on the prowl for a double mushroom cheesesteak, and a water ice afterwards.

Playing hopscotch, hula hoops, pogo sticks, and trying to navigate on stilts.

We were golf superstars of the neighborhood, with our Junior Pro golf clubs. We dug holes in the back yard, inserted a tin can to catch the golfs balls.

r33, I didn't know anybody that had more than one bathroom. We were shocked when The Jeffersons premiered on tv that they had a bathroom just off the living room.

Did anyone else have a Kool-Aid stand?

The biggest house in our neighborhood was two story, 1,800 square feet with four bedrooms and only one bathroom.

R44 Lemonade stand.

We had an old claw foot bathtub that seemed huge when I was a kid. It was a truly memorable day when we had a shower was installed! We didn't have to use that rubber hose faucet attachment any more!

I went to camp, both day camp and sleep away camp. We also spent a couple of weeks as the beach. My first job was the summer I turned 18 and I was a camp counselor.

I love baseball so going to games is always a part of my summer. I grew up in Potomac , MD, a DC suburb, but the Nationals weren't around when I was little so we had to drive to Baltimore & cheer for the Orioles. I loved those days with my Dad.

One of my favorite summertime movies is "The Sandlot."

This thread certainly does bring back great memories. Thanks, DataLoungers.

For me, the summer meant freedom from the nuns at St. Martin's of Tours, and I could do anything I wanted. My parents were very tolerant and let me do whatever I wanted, within reason. Mostly I would ride my bike to Phil's candy store(right down the street from St. Martin's) and grab an ice cream and read the comic books("This ain't a library, kid!"). My favorites were Batman and Spider-Man, especially when they had the 100 page Super Spectaculars for 50 cents. My family would go on vacation for a week once a year, usually to Wildwood, NJ, but once in a while something different(Cape Hatteras in NC, Fredericksburg, Bush Gardens), and it was always fun, mostly because my mom and dad would buy my sister and I souvenirs, and we would go out to eat for every meal. Plus, playing with the kids in my neighborhood, playing hide and seek and tag. I remember once when a little buddy and I found a deck of playing cards at the Playground that had really risque pictures(full penetration, etc.). We both split the deck, but my sister found them before my parents did, and threw them right out, saying "I was too young, and mommy and daddy would kill you if they found these!". And then Fall came, and it was right back to school, and boredom from 8:15 AM-3:15 PM. But even during the school months, I had a ton of fun. I wish I could go back...

+1 for The Sandlot

On weekends, after Sunday dinner, we went to the Columbia Theater in our neighborhood, and watched a double feature for thirty five cents. And we always stopped in the corner drugstore for candy. We were not going to pay ten cents at the theater for a full size candy bar, when we could buy one in the drugstore for a nickel.

We had a group of "upper class" girls who used to have their Summer Tea Party every August. They always made it a point to parade down our street, dressed in crinoline slips, silver crowns, and high heels, and ate brownies and lemon bars right in front of us, without sharing. One summer we taught them a lesson......we got out the garden hoses, and soaked every one of them. That was the last summer they visited our low class neighborhood.

Both my parents worked and my mother used to leave money for ice cream or candy on the breakfast table for us a couple of days a week. I remember riding my skateboard to the 7-11 for a Slurpee or Fun Dip. I'd build my fort so I could read in peace and on rainy days when I'd watch Bewitched and wish I was as fabulous as the caftan wearing Endora. Then there was the one summer when we competed to see who had gone to see "Grease" the most.

R54 You are probably even MORE fabulous than Endora.

I played baseball for the local Catholic church. One of my reoccurring thoughts was that if we all kept practicing, eventually the entire team would be playing Major League Baseball.

Those great block parties where we played duck, duck, goose and flashlight tag were organized by very stoned and drunk parents.

My parents decided we had to move after the cop neighbor punched out some of his wife's teeth.

Hide and Seek --

I was one of those who people didn't bother to find.

I went to the town day camp for a couple of years, probably age 6 - 8 but I hated it. Probably because it was held at the un-airconditioned elementary school I'd just been sprung from for the summer. It went until noon, then I'd go home for lunch and my mom would take us all to the pool. We'd swim until dinner time, or sometimes if it was really hot, my dad would meet us there when he came home from work and would bring McDonalds or pizza and we'd have a picnic there and stay until the pool closed. We had two air conditioners - one in our TV room and one in my parent's bedroom, and they didn't get turned on unless it hit 90. Then we'd also get McDonalds or pizza (too hot to cook) and have a picnic in our TV room and sometimes sleep there too during a heatwave. I lived in a neighborhood with tons of kids in every age group and we mostly hung out in a pack. Everyone would emerge from their houses after dinner and we'd play wiffle ball and kickball in the street until it got dark. There were other games, like Freeze Tag, Red Rover, something about a color war? I can't remember. Sometimes groups of parents would sit out on the front steps, sometimes with a cocktail or two, more to socialize than to watch us.

I can still remember that deliciously tired feeling I'd get after playing all day. I am convinced that's why there were very few fat kids.

[quote]I will never forget the summer when our "rich" neighbors had an in-ground swimming pool installed, and we we invited over to swim !

We had neighbors like that too. I hated swimming (still do) but I loved the fact that they had 2 cabanas for changing (one for boys, one for girls). When swimming time was done, we'd all go into the boys cabana together to change. I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8, but even then I loved getting naked with the other boys. I would offer to towel off their backs, and I'd dry their butts too. Nobody seemed to mind or think it odd.

We didnt' have a car when I was younger,we walked everywhere or rode our bikes. The bus service was excellent back then, but who wanted to waste a dime taking the bus? We were always on the move,, virtually everything we did involved walking, running, or swimming.

We didn't need to text, tweet, or twitter. We had party phone lines in our neighborhood.

Yes, r26. Those potholders.

As R3 said, "Days lasted a long time. Summers lasted forever, were like epic movies. "

1960s South Jersey here.

Swimming in the "cedar water" rivers of the Pine Barrens. The great boardwalks (back in the day) of Atlantic City and Ocean City. The Mister Softee trucks.

Collecting "lightning bugs" in jars. Collecting turtles and tadpoles. Riding behind the DDT trucks on our bikes.

Neighborhood baseball games. Tailgate picnics. Leaving the house for the day and coming home for dinner...with no phones and maybe (if we were lucky) 10 cents in our pockets for a coke from a vending machine at a gas station.

Root Beer stands. Howard Johnson's. Dairy Queen. Soft pretzels with mustard. Taylor's Pork Roll. Ice cream cones with "jimmies".

Just lying on the grass and looking at the moon. Telling ghost stories.

Bikes from Sears. Shorts and shirts from Sears. Little plastic Sears Silvertone transistor radios playing the Beatles and all the other great groups.

The Silverstone Transistor radio from Sears.......my very first radio!

My grandparents had a summer house that sat on a small hill overlooking a lake. My grandpa would get these giant black rubber innertubes (from tractor trailer tires) and we kids would curl up inside of them and push each other in the tubes down the hill and onto the dock and we'd go flying into the water. We'd pick up some serious speed and would be so dizzy from spinning upside down for so long before landing in the water. At night we'd make a fire outside and sometimes go skinnydipping in the dark, which was always a complete thrill.

At home we had a slip n slide and used to play in the sprinkler or play hose tag, which was fun. I liked to play ghost in the graveyard outside when it was almost dark.

I had a pair of metal roller skates that tightened around and attached to your shoes with clamps and a funky metal key. But they worked just fine for an eight year old.

We had milk delivered to you house by the milkman from the Sterling Milk Company. On Fridays, my dad always ordered chocolate milk.

My older brother and I frequently went to play at our cousin's house. We took a short cut through a field, and had to cross several sets of railrod tracks. We never, ever admitted this to anyone, since we were told not to ever go near the tracks. I can't believe I had the balls to do something so dangerously dumb.

Rockaway Beach, myself, my three brothers and about a half dozen cousins in a multi-family three decker with our very energetic and no nonsense immigrant grandparents for the summer......on the beach from 8 til 8, no excuses, Grandma wasn't about to have kids underfoot all day annoying her or the landlord.....the big kids had to keep track of the little kids, but basically it was a free for all and we didn't seem to have a care in the world...... Grandma would bring us sandwiches and hot tea for lunch with lots of milk and sugar ( which tasted amazing, that ocean water could be pretty cold ).....playing in the waves on our cheap foam boards, sifting through the sand for change for ice cream.....long walks on the boardwalk at night.....PlayLand.......stick ball games in the street.....Wednesday nights lying on blankets on the now cool sand eating chocolate chip cookies watching the fireworks.......being so tired at night that even the jets flying overhead every minute from JFK that rattled the windows couldn't keep you awake.....seems like a dream now

Pretty sad that kids growing up today have never had any pure, uncomplicated fun, and enjoyed the closeness of family. And sadly, they probably never will.

We not only lived in a one bathroom household, we lived in a one telephone household.

[quote]We not only lived in a one bathroom household, we lived in a one telephone household.

One bathroom, one telephone, one television, one stereo, one car, one subscription to Readers Digest. We were really underprivileged.

One telephone, one TV. Forget watching a show if something was on your folks wanted to see. Summer mornings waking up to bacon and eggs, heading out to play either in our yard or across the street to my friend's house. We'd all get on our banana seat bikes and ride all over. We usually would ride up to the Intermediate School which was about a mile away, then back again. Inside for lunch (peanut butter and jelly) and then back out again to play. Sometimes we would go to the beach if my friend's dad took us. We would get boogie boards, ice cream and sunburnt. Evenings were dinner with the family, dishes, then back out again for Ditch 'Em or just laying in the yard looking at stars. Arcades with pockets of quarters to play Asteroids, Pac Man. Mall movie theaters to see Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gremlins. Getting a Betamax machine and inviting friends over to watch movies at home. Slumber parties with a lot of popcorn. The ever present smell of a brush fire in the distance (Southern CA). Lying on my bed, listening to Vin Scully call the Dodger games and imagining myself as the first female player for the Dodgers. The LA County Fair near the end of Summer or Disneyland when our parents would let us go off with our siblings or friends as long as we met up at a certain time to check in. When I got older Summer became band camp and hanging out with more friends while we learned the years field show. Good times.

I love the innocence of these memories. They are all so simple in a very nice way. I weep for today's children because they just don't know what it was like.

Amazing how many of us were able to play in the street and weren't waffled by cars. We knew to yell Car! and we'd all scatter out of the road until the car passed.

My sister wants her kids to have the same freedoms and fun childhood she did but is having a hard time finding them other free-range kids to play with. Sadly, I think my niece and nephew are growing up as "those weird kids" on the street. My older (competitive Frau) sister's kids grew up very scheduled and structured but now as young adults seem pretty spontaneous. They also aren't slaves to technology. My 22-year old niece thinks of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram things she did in high school and college. She left her phone at my house and didn't come pick it up for 2 days. She said that if anyone needed to get hold of her urgently they'd figure out a way.

We used to pitch tents made from old blankets and sheets, and sleep in the yard. My dad would set up a very small charcoal grill for us to make hot dogs and S'mores.

What I find fascinating is how many of us had stay at home mothers. In my neighborhood, dinner was served almost every night at a set time and EVERYONE would go indoors to eat. Same thing with going home to get lunch. Mom was always there. We weren't rich by any means. My father was blue collar and didn't make that much money, but they had a house and two cars (station wagon, VW bus) and FOUR kids. My mother had never worked a day in her life. This was the 70's and it wasn't until the early 80's that I remember hearing the term "Latch Key Kids." And like most people in the 90's, my folks divorced and Mom had to find a job or another husband right away, which she did both. But most kids today have day care and both parents who work all to afford just the basic shit that our folks had from one parent working one job. It is really sad.

R78, most two-parent working families work to afford the extra shit we didn't have - multiple bathrooms, central air, vacations, entertainment, restaurants, etc.

My mother was a teacher so had summers off and it was nice to have her home. All of the other moms in our neighborhood didn't work. When I was in elementary school in the 70s I was one of a handful of kids with a working mother. Then, it seemed in middle school (late 70s) classmates' parents started getting divorced and the mothers had to get jobs.

Kids today have far too much, yet the always seem to want more.

My mom had one credit card, from a local department store, a metal card in a small blue plastic sleeve, and the card was referred to as a " charge- a-plate." She used it once every summer to by us new Keds, and it was locked back up in the metal "important papers box" until the following summer. Everything else was cash or layaway. That was how they established good credit!

In our neighborhood, during a heatwave, the parents would let the kids (not the younger ones) sleep out in the back yard. We would take turns sleeping in different neighbors' yards. We usually stayed up most of the night talking away in our sleeping bags, looking up at the stars.

My mom and dad both worked, since the early sixties, up until the time they retired. The had just bought their first home, and were putting us through the Catholic school system, and there was a mortgage and tuition to pay. And they were saving money to by their first car. We opted to go to public high schools, and were better for it. Everyone helped out at home, and my mom always managed to have dinner on the table at 5:00 pm. And all these years later, they are still together, and still happy. We kids certainly were lucky in ways that money couldn't buy.

I adore the minimalist lifestyle of my working class youth.....all your clothes could fit in two dresser drawers, you had two pair of shoes...church shoes and a pair of canvas sneakers.

I can relate to that, r83. But I also had a third pair of shoes.......school shoes!

The size of the closets in our house were unbelievably small, yet we shared closets. My Grandfather's house had no closets at all, only those brown metal "wardrobers" purchased at a local furniture store.

1 bathroom? The biggest house was 1800 square feet? Digging a hole for a tin can? These are all made up, right?

My aunt's house had no bathtub, only a small, metal shower stall. For some reason, I always though those things were scary and dirty.

When I wasn't helping Pa plow the lower forty, I was dating a girl who kept getting raped by a evil clown. Then there was the time I burned down the School for the Blind and killed my sister's baby by smoking cigarettes. Ah, memories!

R85 We did dig holes in the ground and put in Campbell soup cans to catch the golf balls. We thought we were quite professional. But then again, we golfed in our yard on East Eighth Street, not at the country club.

I think it's pretty creative for a group of eight to twelve year old. And the neighborhood girls were our caddies.

Pity the poor lad @r85. Poor fella never had a normal childhood like the rest of us lucky kids!

What amazes me is that we've survived to talk about all of this... we did the most dangerous things.

Do kids still climb trees? We'd swim in ponds and streams with no adults around. We'd skate on frozen lakes with no authorities checking them. We'd dig holes and make caves. We'd make bonfires. We rode our bikes with no helmets. We'd ride in the car with no seat belts and play in the cargo area of station wagons while they were zipping along the highway.

We were 8 years old and we'd leave the house and go for miles on our bikes along deserted country roads. No phones.

It was another world that we will never see again.

[quote] We rode our bikes with no helmets

And usually somebody on the handlebars.

It may be my gauzy memory, but there always seemed to be one song that was played over and over again on the radio, and hearing that song later brought back memories of that specific summer. Whenever I hear 'You're Havin' My Baby' by Paul Anka, it's summer of '74, and I'm hanging out at the A&W in Eagle River, WI with my cousins Mike and Steve.

I love all of these stories. I think it is true an era has passed that will never be seen again which is sad as I think an important part of childhood and self discovery has vanished. I am the oldest of 6 kids, mom stayed at home and oh how we loved summer and the freedom that it brought. We would wake up gulp down some cereal and go out to start the day and meet up with friends, We would roam the neighborhood on our bikes, walk in the "crick", and just be. We came home for meals and mom never seemed to be worried. I remember Pool Hopping where we would go around the neighborhood and jump in random pools of our neighbors. We never had money to buy anything from the corner store until we were teenagers and had lawn mowing/babysitting jobs, but I do not remember feeling deprived. Vacation was a week in sea isle city on the beach which was pure paradise. I miss those carefree days. In the winter dad would take us skiing up the poconos, which meant he left you by the beginners lift and we met him later for lunch. It was a lot of fun.

When I was nine, I slipped off of my bicycle seat, and injured what my mom referred to as my " little boy parts." After that , I would only ride my sister's bike. My 81 year old grandmother still says that " Your whole life changed the day you climbed up on your sister's bicycle. " If only life were that simple!

1967 -- The Summer of the Evil Water Wiggle and The Notorious Slip and Slide.

No Fear.

Many of us grew up on families that were struggling, and were never aware of that fact. We had three meals, freshly laundered clothes, a bed with clean sheets to sleep in, and a roof over our heads.

And we knew we were loved. Family and friends were everything.

And "struggling" never meant Life or Death.

All of your posts make me thankful to have grown up when I did, and the way I did. I wouldn't change a thing.

We ALL lived on peanut butter, why was no one allergic to the stuff?

And the cure for ADD/ADHD was a slap on the rear end.

I was always proud of the fact that I got through eight years at St. Paul's Catholic school without getting my knuckles cracked with a ruler.

I enjoyed the summers when my grandparents lived on their farm. We'd go to the lake every day (which was kind of small and dirty ,but good enough for our landlocked midwestern selves), wander around the acreage unsupervised hunting for frogs, making mudpies, feeding the animals, etc. At night there would be a million fireflies and we would catch them & put them in babyfood jars. I haven't seen any fireflies in years.

At home in the city we would go to someone's house with a pool to swim, occasionally play softball or mini golf. Otherwise I was inside watching old reruns and game shows, or in the basement rec room playing video games (first Atari, then the original Nintendo) or reading my mom's books. Flowers in the Attic was totally shocking to me. I was probably about 12 when I read that one.

We had a good number of cats in our neighborhood, and they all liked to congregate in our back yard. At night, it was hysterical to watch them chasing fireflies. We would also buy catnip, spead it on the side walk in our yard, and watch the cats enjoy. And thus began my lifetime love affair with cats.

I grew up in a working class neighborhood in New Jersey. We kids were outside all day long. Ran home for a sandwich at noon and then out again till six. We skated on skates that clipped onto our shoes and fastened with a skate key. My brothers built racing car scooters out of orange crates and broken skates for wheels. On hot days the fire hydrant would be opened and we would run through the spray. Despite being "working class" my family managed to rent a bungalow at the shore for three weeks, how I don't know since only my Dad worked. We swam and fished, went crabbing. My Dad worked all week and came down on Friday night till Sunday. We loved it because he gave us money for the boardwalk rides on Friday and Saturday. Summer seemed to last for so long then.

Now that I think about it, my folks managed to give us great memories. Other weekend jaunts were to Coney Island, the boardwalk, the roller coaster, Nathan's hot dogs. My folks had friends in a town that was rural then, now a built up suburb. We used to pick vegetables from their fields. We had barbecues there. My Dad and the other men sat watching wrestling on tv, drinking beer. We kids ran around outside catching fireflies.

Loved going to the drive in to watch double-feature scary movies. My mom packed the cooler with all kinds of treats, we got into our comfiest clothes, and had the greatest time.

On rainy days, we,d all gather on someone's porch and play board games or cards. Monopoly was always the favorite.

If we were going to play cowboys and indians, we would all bring sandwiches and head for a full day in the woods. If it was army games, it would be in a nearby field, so everyone went to their home for lunch and then back to army games until it was time for dinner. Some days, we would hang out around the creek. If the dog was with us and would go into the creek, my brother and his friend would go splashing into the creek, too. They would explain their wet shoes and pants to parents with "We had to jump in the creek to save the dog." There were six to ten of us that would hang out through most of the summer. On rain days, the other guys would come over to our house to play in the attic. It had four rooms that were mostly empty. There were no girls that lived in the area, so it was always guys who were playing games.

No, R98, the cure for ADHD was lots of activity, the running, riding bikes, swimming, playing tag, hide and seek and other physical games. No days spent in front of monitors or tv sets.

As others have said, this thread makes me sad that an era has passed and can't be recaptured. I remember my parents reminiscing about their childhood and summers of youth in much the same way, and now know how they felt.

We grew up on a dead-end street with probably 8-10 houses in the neighborhood with kids in our age range to play with. A lot of woods nearby to explore, or we could play kickball and whiffle ball in the street ("Car coming!"). I can remember playing kick-the-can in the evenings and some of the parents would come outside to watch us play, or even join in.

My parents still live in the same house, but you rarely see kids playing outside any more. I was there this past weekend and saw one dad with his kids playing basketball in their driveway. I felt bad that they didn't have the activity like we had growing up.

I thought of some of my neighbors, whose parents have now passed away and the "kids" (we're now in our 30s and 40s) will never have reason to return to the old neighborhood. I know that someday that will be me, and I get incredibly sad.

The house that my grandparents lived in, and raised their eleven children, was torn down several years ago. The neighborhood has greatly changed, and not for the better. Everything that was comforting and familiar is gone, and it makes me incredibly sad to see an empty lot where a house filled with so many happy memories is now gone.

I also remember spending a lot of time at my grandmother's house in the summer with my cousins. We'd play badminton, croquet, wiffle ball, kickball (we called it kicker), hide-and-go-seek, and other various games. We'd run in the cornfield behind her house. We'd go down to the freezing cold river on the hottest days to take a dip. The water was so cold you'd only have to jump in for a minute or two, climb out to warm up, then repeat when you got hot again. We'd climb trees, sometimes go fishing at that freezing river, and pick wild black raspberries that to me are forever a taste of summer.

Not to be a downer but both my parents worked and I didn't have friends so my summers were spent around the house usually alone or with my sister. The days seemed to drag on forever.

My sister's first car was an old Chevy convertible. The day she picked it up, she took ME with her. We rode around the beach, and then got burgers and shakes at a drive-in diner, served to us by a car hop. It was heaven, and I thought I was King for a Day! And I was!

Swam, played cards, read books. Mostly swam.

My mother was (and still is) an extremist Catholic. My father was pathologically cheap. We never went on vacation. We never made day trips. My sister went to girl scout camp for a three day weekend once. Once. I never went to camp of any kind. The local Y had arts and crafts in summer, but I wasn't allowed to go because the YMCA was protestant. Some friends of mine joined the masons in junior high and my mother forbade me from going over their houses again.

Just last week my mother said, "My ideal home would be a condo directly across the street from the church." The church always meant more to her than her kids. No surprise my sister and I couldn't give a flying fuck for religion. Our mother made us go to high school 40 miles away from our friends and family. (There was a public high school two blocks from my house). It was a 2 hour round trip on a public bus filled with lunatic drunk drivers who'd had their licenses suspended after committing vehicular homicide, garden variety alcoholics and other assorted transients and crazies. Not being propositioned by some skank on the bus --- male or female ---- on the way to or from school was a good day.

Basically, I sat home alone in summer while other kids went to day camp, sleepaway camp or to the Y. Unsurprisingly, there were no programs or camps run for kids by the church. We were expected to show up on Saturday and confess our sins. Sunday was 7:30 am mass, where we were expected to contribute the majority of our allowance to the begging baskets which made the rounds twice during mass. And no breakfast before mass so we could get communion. For some reason, having some food in your stomach on Sunday mornings interfered with your state of grace.

When I was about 10-12 I was a huge train fan, and every summer I would ride my bike down to the railroad yards. I had my little instamatic camera, but mostly I played on an old steam engine that was parked there. They also had a dozen or so 1920's/30's passenger cars stored there, and I wandered through them (nothing was locked). I remember I read most of the Tarzan books peacefully sitting in them.

This was a busy working yard on the Union Pacific main line with switch engines going back and forth and trains going through every few minutes. No one cared, the railroad guys would wave at me. My parents knew, and they didn't care either. The only thing my parents were upset about was all the flat tires I got from picking up thorns and junk out there.

The only time I got in trouble was one night when I got up at 3:30AM and walked down to the tracks to watch the Streamliner go by (I was a weird little kid). I'm standing in the middle of the tracks looking for the train's headlight to appear when a cop car drives by. They stop and ask me what I'm doing, and I said, "I'm waiting for a train." Well, I was in the backseat of that car instantly, and my Father was none too pleased when they knocked on the door at 4am. A few months later Amtrak was formed and my real trains were gone. I lost interest, and that was the end of that.

It was a different world back then.

I can remember my non Catholic friends going to vacation bible school, and having so much fun, I was envious. As good Catholic children, we were not permitted to participate in activities at non Catholic churches. It was a great day when Bible School was finally over, and we could finally get on with the business of having some real fun!

Last weekend, an eighteen year old teen was murdered in my hometown when another teen shot him while he was attempting to steal his bike. The shooter was a fourteen year old who will now be tried as an adult. I'm still horrified, even though this is becoming an everyday occurance. I am glad to have grown up when I did, and to have so many good memories of my childhood. And to have felt that love of family.

We were Catholics but Mom had always been treated kindly by the Protestant churches, so we were allowed to go to Vacation Bible School. This was back in the day when (most) churches were so fundie (even the Catholic Church is now very fundie) so it was more interesting Bible stories and nothing about blood and death and crucifixion and sin.

And, of course, the popciscle stick creations.

Our church was always big on macaroni art and sculpture. My favorites were the little round tubes that came in different colors. I thought my sunset was amazingly colorful and beyond beauty, but no one from the Louvre ever called.

One of my favorite rainy day games was Pick Up Sticks. We also played Jacks, and one of the kids in our circle had the original Operation game. And who could forget The Slinky!

I had a slinky! I think just about everyone had one back in the day.

There was a lake not too far from my house, that a bunch of us teens would meet at on the weekends. We would play rock and roll from our cars at full blast, windows down, the wind blowing our hair into tangled messes, driving from one end of the lake to the other. The music was so good back then.

I remember summer days spent shirtless so by day 3 of vacation all the boys in the neighborhood would be deeply tanned and their hair would be blonde. I remember riding bikes up to secret places in the woods where we had stashed old Playboys and Penthouse magazines all us of gathering for a circle jerk and discovering what masturbation was. I remember days spent swimming in neighbors pools and moms who slathered themselves with Ban de Soleil baking in the sun. I remember car trips away for the weekend to beaches and grand hotels and eating in semi fancy restaurants. I remember tipsy parents dancing with each other at summer parties, all the moms drinking chilled white wine and the men gin and tonics. I remember making blanket tents in the back yard and watching the sky spin above us. I remember the drive-in movie theater and my parents loading us into the Buick Estate Wagon in our p.j.'s and going off to see STAR WARS. I remember tree forts and baseball games, I remember how much I HATED the bible day camp I used to get roped into going to for at least 2 days.I remember swing sets and slides so rusty and rickety it was almost an honor if you survived one of them without a huge scratch. I remember hot endless days and soft warm nights full of laughter and sweat and spare ribs and iced tea, big hunks of watermelon and frozen custard. I remember falling in love for the first time with a boy named Steven who was covered in that dusty white hair that you can only see when the sun hits your deeply freckled shoulders and chest in that certain way. I remember kissing him deeply and his lips tasted of honey. I remember all of it.

Drive in movies, dressed in your summer pajamas, eating hot buttered popcorn, sipping Coca Colas, with a side of Hershey Bars, and little bags of chips. This indeed was the very essence of life for a nine year old.

I hate to say it but I'm getting jealous of all of you who had great fun summers. My summers were spent working on my uncles farm from 6AM until he finally let me walk home. I never got paid for it because he was my mother's oldest brother and it was expected I would work for free because he was family. When he died he left everything to his wife's nephew and didn't even mention my family in his will.

For me, this is one of the greatest songs ever and probably the most beautiful about nostalgia for childhood summers. "That Summer Feeling" by Jonathan Richman. Sorry if it's already been posted - it takes me about an hour to scroll through 100+ posts with this new design.

Anyway, here it is:

A summer spent at the Library in the afternoons and the reading all night? Jeez thats not very common. It sounds anti-kid and dull to me R36

In my neighborhood, sometimes on really hot nights, the parents would stay out on the porch later than usual . The neighbor kids would come and hang out in the yard. We'd do somersaults, cartwheels, front flips and back flips in the lush, grassy lawn. Sometimes jump rope. Those were the days before Air conditioning. If it was really hot, my mom was a good sport, and she'd take us to the Dairy Queen. I used to love the chocolate milkshakes,

Seriously R125? I'm not R36 but as kids we went to the library at least twice a week. Before everyone had VCRs and there were only three channels on TV, books were very entertaining.

We used to go to the library once a week to find a book to read. And we would read it, return it in a week, and take out a new one. In my family, reading was required summer fun. I looked forward to it. In those days, you didn't buy books, you borrowed from the library, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys - all that good stuff.

Our library had AC, very important in the hot inland.

All those old walk-up window style Dairy Queens had a little drinking fountain on the side of the building. They didn't want you to use it, they wanted to sell you something instead, but it was there.

What I never figured out was how they managed to rig it so the water in them was always lukewarm even after it had been running all day.

Sailing, surfing, snorkeling, getting stoned at sunset, playing touchy feely under the pier with other beach boys.

Almost the exact same Summer's as het girls lol

I read the most books every summer in our library's reading program. They gave us gold stars.

I spent most of my time outdoors in the summer, but always made a weekly trek to the library. It was a mammoth, old building downtown, and it was great to wander around in. I loved reading at night before bedtime, or on rainy days I'd sit out on the porch and read. I still enjoy reading, and make regular trips to the library every few weeks. The old building is now law offices, but the new library is built along the bayfront with lots of large windows, comfy chairs, and a fabulous view of the lake.

We had a variety store in our neighborhood that served homemade regular and soft serve Ice Cream. Fifteen cents for a large soft serve cone or a double scoop regular cone. So, so good.

Our local YMCA/YWCA had dances in the summer referred to as Y-CO dances. The dances were held on the building rooftop that was surrounded by a six foot chain link fence, just in case those crazy Teens got a little too wild!

I remember my mom using her sixteen quart spaghetti sauce pot to make popcorn the old fashioned way on top of the stove. Pop and popcorn on Saturday nights.

Seems like a lot of us were "pre-air conditioning" too. I remember sleeping with all the doors and windows open,with just the screen door latched. On particularly hot days my dad would go get a big block of dry ice and put it in a tin tub,and we'd sleep on pallets under a fan blowing across that dry ice. My parents were poor,like so many others my mom didn't work,but they always managed to have a couple of huge watermelons sitting in the fridge,until the day I die I will remember how deliciously cold and sweet that melon tasted on a hot summer day. My brothers and I always traveled in a pack of kids,and it was nothing to have 2 -3 extra kids at the table come dinner time. My mother cooked HUGE meals just for that reason,and it took her forever to learn how to cook for two ! It was a nice time,not because the world didn't have its problems,it always has and always will,but we were allowed to be KIDS. We were sheltered in a way that kids these days just cant be.

It's ridiculous how little I see of kids playing outdoors this summer. I think there are two reasons - those that are active are in organizwd sports which are popular in my city. Those that aren't are indoors all day. I'm thankful for the childhood I had outdoors where we created our own games.

the summer hose

Side comment: I find it interesting how many are posting that their families were poor, or lower-middle class, but you weren't aware of it. I can't imagine that happens nowadays.

We were probably considered middle class, but my dad worked a full-time and part-time job, and my mom worked part-time. But they made a ton of sacrifices that never seemed like sacrifices to me at the time. Five of us in a 3BR/1BA home, one car, one phone, no cable, no video games, no A/C, and McDonalds was a night out every 3 or 4 months. But i don't think that was all that unusual in the 70s/early 80s. Today, middle class means you need to have your McMansion with central air, guest rooms, cars for each parent (and possibly the kids), phones for everyone, flat screens and cable in every bedroom, take-out once or twice a week, etc.

While I enjoy modern day conveniences, I miss the simpler days as well.

We were upper middle class (by small town in the Midwest standards), and my parents didn't get central air until the late 1970's. There was a window unit in the kitchen and another in their bedroom, but the rest of us lived in the basement where it was reasonably cool and the kids slept on the screened-in porch on the side of the house if it was really hot. I don't remember it as a particular hardship. Sleeping on the porch was great fun.

Probably the worst part about summer heat was the constant dragging hose and moving sprinklers to try to keep the yard green. This was a huge deal with my father, and I would get elaborate instructions on sprinkler placement and watering times that I was expected to execute with military precision during the day. Of course I ignored them and was lucky to remember to move the damned things once before he got home.

Naturally we (and I mean me, that's what kids were for) mowed our own lawn with a Toro gas push mower, and every year he started out strong with massive amounts of fertilizer, water, seed and 2X per week mowings only to wind up fighting a losing battle when the July heat hit and giving up completely by mid-August when there wasn't enough water in the world to keep that grass green.

The saddest part of it was my father's annual battle with the bald spots. He would plant them with exotic blends of rye and bluegrass and fescue designed to handle too much sun, too much shade, and all the other problems he imagined he was facing, and then he would hand water the patches every day. He was so happy when the first green shoots appeared, and he would tell my mother that he finally had the problem beat. Of course the green shoots were all dead by the 4th of July and nothing ever really changed, but every spring he would start the fight all over again.

I remember putting on our bathing suits, and running around the yard, spraying each other with the garden hose. We also loved running around in our suits during the rain, especially thunderstorms on a hot summer day. Who knew people actually got struck by lightning?

Why do I have the sudden urge to once again watch the movie "Stand By Me?"

[quote] Side comment: I find it interesting how many are posting that their families were poor, or lower-middle class, but you weren't aware of it. I can't imagine that happens nowadays.

I think one reason we weren't aware of it is because the upper middle class and the wealthy mostly kept a lower profile.

A doctor and other well paid professionals may have had a bigger home but they were mostly just slightly bigger versions of the ranch houses and split levels everyone else had.

There weren't even that many all-out luxury cars available...there was the Cadillac, Lincoln, Imperial, Thunderbird, Riviera and Corvette but there weren't that many around.

I remember my sister and her girlfriends playing with paper dolls, while I enjoyed my crayons and coloring books. My sister was always designing new outfits for her paper dolls, but she had a very grown up set of colored pencils. I was so jealous.

We did so many things as families, spent holidays with all the relatives. Summer picnis and family reunions. Friends and neighbors were a big part of our lives. So many people don't have that connection today. It' sad.

I had to spend two summers in summer school. After the first grade and then again the second grade and the same teacher sent me there both times.

The second time he said, "Maybe you can run off some of that fat and not be such a pig when you come back in grade 3."

What a fucker that teacher was R147 !

It was Catholic school in the 1970s R148. He was the norm.

[quote]We did so many things as families, spent holidays with all the relatives. Summer picnis and family reunions. Friends and neighbors were a big part of our lives. So many people don't have that connection today. It' sad.

I think there was a much bigger "neighborhood" connection years ago. While I'm friendly with my neighbors and chat with them occasionally, I recall many more neighborhood gatherings when younger. As much as we talk about kids playing outdoors more frequently in those days, I think adults did too. I recall parents sitting out on the patios, watching the kids play, maybe having a drink, and stopping by to socialize with other families. I remember my dad and the neighbor mowing their lawns then sharing a beer afterward. Maybe that was unique to our neighborhood? But I certainly don't see that today.

In "Endangered Pleasures," writer Barbara Holland dated the demise of neighborhood as a social group to 1981...

So it wasn't just you, r150 -- we all lost that.

You're right, R150, neighbors were much friendlier with each other years ago. They truly cared about one another almost like family. You never really felt lonely and you knew if you needed anything, your neighbors would be there for you, at least in my neighborhood.

Now people go to work, come home and get on their computers. And they really don't have much time to socialize. I think people are suspicious of each other too. This adds a lot to the loneliness so many people feel nowadays.

Our neighbors gathered on each others porches and played cards. I remember we played "Hearts", "Dig". and some others.

I think about those who are book readers is that, like me, we loved going into worlds that weren't available to us.

Also many libraries and schools had reading contests. I remember being in the library one Summer and the mother of the town's only Asian family came in and she was carrying 20 books for her two sons. She was making damned sure one of her sons was going to win that contest and get her son's picture in the local newspaper.

I loved reading science fiction and mysteries, and watching horror movies. By today's standards those horror movies are pretty laughable.but I still love watching the old classics.

I snuck downtown to see Psycho when I was twelve. The ticket seller asked me if I was old enough to see this movie, I said yes, and I was in! Anthony Perkins scared the hell out of me, and I had a problem taking showered for months afterward. Way back them, who knew he was gay!

R154, the old horror films are only laughable in terms of no longer being able to frighten an audience(Island of Lost Souls, Freaks and The Black Cat being exceptions). But as far as acting, dialogue, art direction, cinematography and direction, most of the really good ones are as outstanding as any other Golden Age Hollywood product. The same audience that would laugh at an old horror picture are just as likely to hoot at Dark Victory and The Magnificent Ambersons because of their theatricality.

And yes, watching those old movies(horror and otherwise) until all hours of the morning was one of the joys of youthful summers, too.

See a few Erie, Pa people posting in here : )

My grandmother next door had a peach tree and we made the best peach ice cream in a wooden hand -cranked freezer with lots of rock salt around the metal cylinder. You could get your little brother to put his tongue on it and get stuck to it if you acted fast before someone stopped you.

I remember my mom putting calamine lotion on mosquito bites, and vinegar on our sunburned skin to cool it.

playing in the pool, watching soaps, leaving the windows open and cool breezes would come through, watching the stars at night and hearing the crickets :)

We were usually forced into summer school for half the day. But they were fun classes, like puppetry and cooking.

I have always hated summer. I loathe heat, I loathe humidity, I loathe mosquitoes, I loathe vacations and it always meant being forced into having "fun" that I wasn't interested in - pony rides (I hate ponies), swimming lessons (I hate swimming), some fucking camping trip where you got to sleep on 92 different sharp rocks and experience wood spiders and their nocturnal habits. Sunburn and poison ivy and sweating to death because my parents didn't believe in air conditioning - trips to see cousins who beat me and my sisters up and character-improving 500-mile slogs to see some sinister dump my parents had decided was educational. Please, please, please, can;t we just stay home and read a book about it? I love reading! I read all the time! No, we had to cram ourselves into the Rambler and subject ourselves to car sickness and traffic jams and dried-out peanut butter sandwiches because God forbid we stop even at a roadside diner, complete waste of money.

Fall was beautiful and winter was wonderful and spring was nice with the garden starting and the days getting longer.

But summer was always awful and I dread and hate it to this day.

You sound fun, R161.