Roll Out Those Lazy Days...

Art by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau

What did you do in the summertime? I read. Mom didn't have a car, so there was no place to go. When I was ten I took piano lessons from a lady that lived across the street, and we walked to a neighborhood swimming pool most days, but my most memorable summer excursion was riding my bike to the library every week.

The Nancy Drew shelf was the first one I checked. Those books were very popular, so it was a major coup to find one available, especially one I hadn't read. I also liked the Little Maid books. They were about girls who lived in exotic places in the olden days (Little Maid of Old Quebec, Little Maid of Old Virginia, etc.) Fifteen, by Beverly Cleary was my first romance novel. He kissed her on the last page when he asked her to go steady. (I read that page over and over, and checked the book out again later in the season.)

I remember a lot of books about nurses. There was one called Candystriper that inspired daydreams of delivering flowers to handsome guys with broken legs. (I later found out there was more to it than wearing the cute pinafore.) Another favorite was Student Nurse. She fell for the student doctor and I think there was a kissing scene on the last page of that one, too.

The summer between 5th and 6th grade was my biography phase. I read about Helen Keller, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Edison and Louis Pasteur. Everything I know about those people came from a series put out by Weekly Reader.

Days back then were long and hot. I moved with the sun. After I'd done my work and my practicing, I went outside and laid on the patio swing to read. Later I meandered over to the side yard, where I laid flat on my back and smelled lilacs, and occasionally watched the white smoke of a jet plane high above my pages.

We didn't have air conditioning so the house was hot and it was uncomfortable to be inside. Besides that, if my mom saw me hanging around she'd have me iron the pillowcases or glue in the green stamps. Before our basement was finished there was a mattress downstairs, and that was where I spent the afternoons. A bottle of homemade root beer and a library book were my idea of a good time.

In between chapters I went over to Karen's where we sat on her patio and played Go Fish and Old Maid. Her mom had a bridge club, which seemed terribly sophisticated. On bridge days the living room was gated off and we peeked in at the card tables all set with coasters and nut cups. She taught us to play Gin Rummy and I felt so mature keeping score and knowing the difference between a club and a spade.

Karen had to weed their giant garden every day, so when she got started on that chore I went to Veda Ann's where we watched Queen for a Day and American Bandstand. They had a picnic table under their carport, and Tommy and Raymond came around for a game of spaceship. We played like we were two sets of twins named Terry and Jerry, and Tammy and Pammy. (I was Tammy.)

Moms were everywhere watching out for us, but they didn't entertain us. They provided meals and the occasional band-aid. We were expected to "go out and play." Eventually we'd hear mothers calling their kids home for dinner. Dad came home and cooked something on the barbecue, and we'd have corn-on-the-cob, peaches and watermelon. After baths we got to play outside in our pajamas until it got dark. I usually ended up where I'd started, on the patio swing with a book.

During my childhood I never played on a team, I never went to camp (although I once went to an arts-and-crafts day where I learned to boondoggle) and I never went anywhere to learn to work with other kids. I had siblings and neighbor kids for that. There were some kids who had tennis coaches and golf lessons, art tutors and sleep-away camps, but I didn't know them. For the kids in my neighborhood, summer days seemed lazy, but they weren't wasted. I wouldn't trade what I learned in the library and between the households of my suburban neighbors for horseback lessons or debutante classes. I didn't take lessons on how to live. Summertime is when that knowledge settled on me like a sun tan. I watched, absorbed and read. It was the best summer school I could have attended!