Although
summer officially came a week ago, I always think of summer as beginning on the
first of June, a time when we were finally through with school. Because I lived
by my grandparents’ farm, my siblings, cousins and I spent much of our time
running free. Back in those days no one worried about child molesters or
kidnappers. Traffic wasn’t as heavy as it is today, either. And there was no TV
until I was in my teens, and certainly no cell phones.
Sometimes
we hiked back to a stream that ran under a train trestle where the water was
deep enough to go swimming, but not deep enough to drown. We stopped going
there when I discovered leaches all over my legs. Most of our swimming was done
at Eagle Creek or another swimming place north of us when we could talk my
father into taking us. We piled into the car sitting on each other’s laps when
it got too full. Sometimes my Aunt and Uncle went, too, so more kids including
some neighborhood kids could go, too.
There
was a stream that went through my grandparents’ farm, too, but most of the time
it was shallow and some septic tanks drained into it. However, one spring when
it flooded, we took an old barn door out there and floated down the stream on
it. Another time we took our grandfather’s boat without permission and paddled
down the stream. As I remember it, we were in trouble for taking something
without asking.
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| An old picture of some of my cousins |
One
summer my brother, Jerry, and our cousins, Norman and Dolores, built a club
house out of scrapped of lumber we gathered up. It was no larger than a rather
small kitchen table. The boys did the sawing, hammering and nailing while
Dolores and I handed them the tools and nails. When we finished it we loaded it
on a red wagon, which shows you that it wasn’t very large, and we hauled it
across the road and back on a farm track to the woods. The boys took turns
pulling and Dolores and I pushed. We had water in an empty peanut butters jar,
and the boys drank most of it because they said they were working harder. I
remember the water had a definite taste of peanut butter. We put our club house
under a line of trees next to a wide path and across from the woods we played
in. The four of us barely fit in and, of course, we couldn’t stand up. Because
Dolores and I loved Roy Rogers, we put up a poster of him for decoration. The
following day we found Roy Rogers with a black mustache and beard. We were so
upset, but our brothers thought it was funny. It wasn’t too many days later
when a neighbor boy set fire to our clubhouse and almost set the whole woods on
fire. Fire trucks came and the fire was put out before it did much more damage
than totally destroy our club house. The boy had wanted to be in our club, and
we turned down because he was always in trouble, and there was no room for him
anyway. I remember reading in the newspaper years later that he went to prison
for murdering someone.
I
remember my Uncle Zeke, one of my father’s many brothers, taking my brother and
I to some place north to pick blackberries several summers. It was before he
married and had kids of his own. It was sort of fun, but also hot. My mother
made blackberry jam with the blackberries we picked, and that was good.
Summer
time also meant there were the county fairs. Mostly our grandfather took Jerry
and me to the Geauga Fair north of us. He’d give us each fifty cents to spend,
and often we spent it all on the games like throwing a ball to knock down the
wooden milk jugs, or trying to fish out a yellow duck to see if we’d get a
prize. Grandpa always bought us cotton candy or some other treat to eat, too.
One of the things we liked was watching the horse and the two wheeled sulky races on the fairground track.
Other
things I remember were playing softball evenings at our neighbor’s house. I was
and probably still am horrible at the game. Still I almost always made it to
first base because when I hit the ball it didn’t go very far in front of me so
I could make it to first base before the pitcher or catcher could get the ball.
What I lacked in batting and throwing skills, I made up for by being a very
fast runner in those days. Other games we played were kick the can and hide
& go seek, and as I grew older, the neighbor girls often came over and
we played Monopoly or Canasta afternoons.
When
the sweet corn ripened on my grandparents’ farm, a table was set up near the
road to sell sweet corn. I didn’t sell it often, but my brother Jerry did and cousin Norman. Grandpa preferred having Jerry sell rather than our older male cousins
because there was always more money for Grandpa when Jerry sold than when the
cousins. Obviously, they helped themselves to the money.
There
was a hollow old willow tree behind my grandparents’ house, and on summer
afternoons I’d often climb up in it with a book to read in a wide crouch of the
tree where people didn’t notice me, and where it was quite comfortable. I loved
climbing trees. In fact, once I climbed almost to the top of a maple tree
back by the woods and when I tried to go higher, the branch didn’t hold me, and
I bounced all the way down to the ground. Fortunately I didn’t get hurt.
Sometimes
on summer evenings, we’d camp out. One day Norman, Dolores, Jerry and I put up
my grandfathers’ large canvas tent across the road from the farm house with
plans to sleep in it that night. One of us looked out to see Grandpa and my dad
coming down the lane towards the tent. Dad had a hand behind his back. Worried
we were in trouble, we crawled out. My dad asked, “Who told you that you could put up the tent?” He was scowling. One of us said, “Grandma.” Then Dad brought
his hand out with a gallon of ice cream and told the four of us to come home
for ice cream. Ice cream was a real treat in those days. That night we slept
out and I remember scaring my younger brother and cousins with some spooky ghost
stories, even Norman who was a year or two older than I was.
Other
evenings my cousins Sally and Judy, who lived a quarter of a mile away, would
camp out in their back yard. After their parents were asleep, we’d sneak off
and do naughty things like turn
over
a neighbor’s lawn chairs, and once we went up to the corner bar across from the
Presbyterian Church and looked in and then ran off giggling.
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| My mother with one of my younger sisters and me at a picnic. |
Summers
also meant almost every Sunday, my mother’s sister, Aunt Millie and Uncle John
Kapp along with the four Kapp kids and my three siblings and me, went on a
picnic. Every Sunday, either my mom or her sister would take delicious fried
chicken while the other took ham. They also alternated between who would bring
the baked beans or potato salad and a pie or cupcakes.
We
always had cold drinks like lemonade or Kool-Aide. Sometimes we’d head for Lake
Erie, sometimes to Warner’s Hollow, or any number of other places. Sometimes to
an amusement park if it was when where my dad or uncle worked had a day planned
there. We always stopped on the way home at some little park in the middle of a
town or village with picnic tables, swings and sliding boards to eat what was
left of our picnic lunch for supper. We traveled far and wide in our Buicks –
no SUV’s then – and once when we were hungry and were lost on some country road
in Pennsylvania, we ate next to a pretty stream in a cow pasture.
When
we were teenagers, my brother bought an old Model A or Model T, I forget which,
and had it towed home. He managed to get it running, but he was too young to
get a driver’s license, so he drove it all over Grandpa’s farm with our cousins
and me either inside or hanging on to the car from the running board. He was a
crazy driver speeding and turning in sharp circles. Once my cousin Sally fell
off and the back wheel ran over her foot, but fortunately it didn’t break any
bones.
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| My brother and me climbing trees. |
We
didn’t have all the things that today’s kids have, but somehow I feel we were
lucky that we had the freedom to explore and enjoy the simple life.
What
do you remember about summers when you were young?
