Post #542658 by beadtiki on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 11:35 AM

For me it was getting up that first day of summer and staying in my pjs for half the morning; playing kickball with the neighbor kids in the street in front of our house; walking to the pond near our house and hanging out on its little beach; building forts in the back yard with all the remodeling remnants; looking for salamanders under rotten logs; waiting for the sound of the popsicle man and then screaming around the house until my mom produced the requisite "hush money"; family trips to the Oregon coast (Depot Bay) with a bunch of family friends where we rented this HUGE house that looked out over the ocean, looking for whale spouts and trying to find the Japanese floats for my mom and agates for my dad (today its seaglass for ME!); sleeping outside in the backyard in our homemade "tents" (a blanket draped over our monkey bars!); and when we were members of the local Civic Club, spending the day at the lake; riding our bikes to the Lake Forest Park Shopping Center to buy sunflower seeds and Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider; sleeping in the basement when it got too hot at night; the swanky parties my parents threw for their artsy-fartsy friends that I wasn't invited to but since it was right under my bedroom I couldn't sleep and could hear EVERYthing; the occasional trip to Eastern Washington to visit family (one year a local bowling alley blew up in the middle of the night and EVERYONE had to go see what happened - turned out the idiot oiling the lanes was smoking too close to the highly flamable oils and blew himself up - big goings on in such a dinky town!); harassing the hell out of my sister while she "babysat" me during the days OR positioning our stereo speakers so they were aimed at our neighbors with the non-stop barking dogs and blasting Rock 'n' Roll at them! I just realized how very boring my summers are these days.