How come, as a kid, summer lasted forever and here and now it is already the middle of July and I STILL haven't unpacked all of my summer clothes. By the time I finally get that done, it'll be Christmas. And we won't even mention the plastic stand up noel light post that I just noticed is STILL sitting in the living room. Let's just say I'm getting a jump on my holiday decorating. And speaking of which, I bought Chinese knotted tassels with bells on eBay to add to the decorations on said Christmas tree. They will go nicely with polymer clay balls and bendy tie dyed fabric bendi dolls and the multicolored garland and the diamond shaped acrylic things on a string, that dress my tree. (it really looks a lot better than it sounds)
But back to the kid in summer thing. While I don't remember much from my childhood, there are, well, I guess sensations that I remember more and a type of mental vignette that is like a mental snapshot.
I was raised in a row house in Baltimore. We had an alley running along the backs of the yards and while we called it an alley it was more of a paed one lane street. Only the only wheeled vehicles that came that way was the ice cream man (we had one that was a dwarf and would walk up the wheel bumper to get to the cold case and I always worried that he's get locked in), the truck with the amusement ride ( I liked the mini roller coaster the best), the Huckster (he had an open sided truck and sold fresh produce and was the father of a kid I went to school with) and the Arabber (like the huckster but with a horse and wagon instead of a truck) Then there was the milk guy and the egg guy and every kid in the neighborhoods that backed up to each other, screaming and running and biking and dodge balling in the alley..
I would sit on the curb where the alley met the street and wait for the street lights to come on. That was my signal to come home only I always dragged my feet going home because one evening I saw my grandmother ride past in a car and since she had already been dead for more than a year at that time, I always hoped to see her again.
I'm sure I was in the alley playing but those times aren't as clear as me playing in the garden. Yep among the tomato plants and marigolds. I would dig shallow canals and lakes, flood thme and then crack out the small plastic animals and pretend that this was thier world and the plants their trees. I'd have whole complex story lines going on with each animal having its own name and personality. They were the cheap plastic not sized to scale or colored to reality animals with their green goats and chickens nearly the size of the calves. Calves that could be pink or green or blue and NEVER the real color. ( I guess those would have cost more)
I also remember my mother INSISTING that I get out of the house and into the fresh air. We had no air conditioning back then and so the windows were always wide open. You'd think I'd get enough fresh air that way, but no... I had to get out of the house and sitting on the back steps reading a book wasn't what my mother had in mind. So I'd go two houses up to Martha's house, join her on her padded glider and the two of us would read books until out eyes were ready to fall out. It now strikes me as odd that I had to sneak reading.
There was a small shopping center up the street and across a busy road, that we were allowed to visit on our own. There was a grocery store and a Read's Drug store and at the far end was a dime store (Oh god I miss dime stores) and I remember snagging small plastic dolls with snap on plastic clothes for some ridiculous price if 10 cents each. Even tho I wasn't much of a doll person these plastic dolls looked almost like grown ups and fit in very well with the plastic animals.
Once a summer there would be an adventure and we would go to the OTHER shopping center that meant crossing two busy roads and walking along a barely discernable path through the weeds to reach that shopping center with its dime store and drug store and grocery store. But it was a long walk and we could only go as a goup and I was always the leader AND still in elementary school.
Summers have never been the same since I grew up. In fact, I remember sitting in a bath sobbing my heart out because my mother had declared that I was too old to play with plastic animals in the tub and I had to put them away. What was the use of growing up if blue plastic pigs and wobbly orange horses could not come along. I still have a love for miniature anything so I guess I never really did grown up.
I miss kid summers even with the specter of school in September looming before me and of the memories I do have of childhood, they are always in the summer.
I wonder what the sons remember of their childhood summers. There were He-Men characters and Gi Joes and Thundercats by the time they played in flooded sandboxes. There was hide and go seek and catching lightning bugs (only to release them immediately so they wouldn't die)and back yard camp outs and naked swimming in the back yard pool after dark (them not me)and walking to the pharmacy for candy (no major roads to cross and pharmacy lady had my home number) and when they were older, trips to the park to fish... again catch and release, if they ever even caught anything and, I guess that same taste of freedom that I had as a kid. Sometimes I think its a shame that we hae to grow up. If I had my way, I'd be a kid forever.
Tell my aching old lady bones that.
Labels: baltimore, childhood, memories, summber
