Hot Summer Days

Hot summer days remind me of Hula Hoops, the Good Humor (ice cream) man and playing Hide -n-Seek on South Hall Lane, the street my family lived on in 1959. Most homes, like our two bedroom, one bath duplex didn't have air conditioning . Screened windows were left open and electric fans were strategically placed in living rooms and bedrooms to circulate air . No matter, the indoors remained stiffingly hot.

To help cool down we neighborhood kids ran around bare foot, splashed through the sprinkler or took turns squirting each other with the hose. While still sopping wet , my best friend Linda and I would jump on our pink and white Schwinn bikes and ride as fast as we could around the block creating our own kind of air conditioning. We'd clip cards to the spokes of our back wheels believing it made us go even faster.

Sometimes we'd make a shade fort in my side yard out of old sheets and cardboard boxes. Our mom' s would pack us a lunch in an old pillow case or sack. Linda and me, and a trail of kids would heave the pillowcases over our shoulders and walk up one side of the street then down the other pretending we were on a foreign expedition , the shade fort our final destination. Adding to our rag tag brigade and bringing up the rear, was my little brother, Walt and our next door neighbor, Richard.

Richard had a desert tortoise that he and Walt would dress in some kind of outfit and push along in my baby doll buggy. Remembering that poor tortoise now, dressed up and in a doll buggy makes me laugh out loud thinking how silly it must have looked, but I smile too, remembering those happy, carefree hot summer days of childhood and the fun we had.