Spring/Summer Happy Childhood Memories!

I don't know what made me think of this today and I'm not sure if those in warmer climates can relate. Does anyone remember in the spring when the big toy sellers (like Lionel Kiddie City) used to set up the above ground pools inside the store, complete with water? As a kid I thought that was the coolest thing and I would have done whatever it took to spend the day swimming inside Kiddie City! I remember longingly standing next to the pool, my hand barely able to reach the icy cold water inside, breathing in that summery aroma of chlorinated pool water mixed with that distinctive pool liner/new vinyl smell and just feeling reassured that warmer weather was on its way!

When I was born my aunt bought us an above ground pool to keep my brothers occupied. It was great fun growing up, I especially liked it when tree frogs would lay eggs and we'd have tadpoles and the sound of croaking at night. That is a wonderful memory for me.

So far I haven't seen one frog at my own home, around the ponds. I always hope they'll come for a visit, and I'll hear them again. Maybe when I have kids we'll get an above ground pool, but don't tell them it's for the frogs.

ahhh yes, I remember the store pools well from my childhood.
What caught my attention in you post though was the "new vinyl smell"
Although the pools were cool, for me it was the spring that when Sears set up a huge vinyl playhouse. It was the prettiest thing I had ever seen in all of my 5 or 6 years of life! Boy, I wanted that so bad! Every time we would visit the store I'd spend the whole time inside that playhouse. It only had one small opening in the thing and that Vinyl smell was over whelming! I'd be next to passed out from the smell by the time my folks would fish me back out. To this day every time I smell Vinyl, I think of that spring.

The Sound of Vinny...I don't like the Dodgers, but that guy means warm days.

The smells of coppertone and of Wizzard, as it's just burned off...and the charcoal is getting white around the edge.

Also the smell of Skunk reminds me of long highway trips (done of course when School was over)

And odd fuel station names...Odd just means they didn't have them where I lived. Huskey (they gave away coins with the presidents images in the late 1960s)

Sinclair with the Dinosaur? Conoco was terribly exotic. Anyplace that rained in summer or where there was thunder was exotic too.

rant...sorry

I can identify with the Vinny reference... in Maryland we used to have Chuck Thompson who would do play by play for the Baltimore Orioles and hearing his voice was as much a sound of summer as the birds singing and the crickets chirping at night. I think my love of the Orioles really started diminishing when Chuck, who just died this winter, only did play by play on an occassional basis. Having the team suck for so many years didn't help either.

Hawaiian Tropic had/has that deep tanning oil with that great coconut smell but for some reason the slightly medicinal smell of Coppertone is the definitive smell of summers at the beach! On occassion I've been known to sneak a sniff, especially during the winter, on trips to the local Target.

F-inghell, how could I forget Rootbeer Floats?

I can go years without one, and not think of it or them...then one sip and it's the 4th of july.

I suppoese Watermellons should make me feel the same way, but they don't..I suppose they appear in too many fruit salads to seem summer specific.

In So Cal when I was really young there were lizzards that would come out in the warmer months. Western Fence Lizzards were the most common ("Blue Bellys") but there was one called a horned toad or Horneytoad that seemd to dissappear about 1968. They were cool.

Western Fence Lizzards have a strange enzyme in thier blood that neutralizes Lymes in Ticks. Amazing little varments.

The sulphery smell of fireworks makes any night seem like summer. It's different than gunpowder smell...I don't feel the memories if I go skeet shooting and sniff the shotgun...(sounds like some porn) that I get from the wafting clouds of ochre drifing...I loved to root thru the stacks of spent fireworks looking for "Duds" that someone may have been to chicken to light.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who spent hours cobbling together little bombs to blow up models

My parents used to take my sister and I to a place called Stewart's Root beer and they used to do curbside service with the trays that hung on the car windows. This was in the late 70's/early 80's and it had a vintage feel to it even then. They used to serve their made on the premises rootbeer in frosted glass mugs and I loved it as a kid! Stewart's was real close to the boat yard where my parents kept their Chris Craft and we would always beg to stop there on the way home! There still is a remaining Stewart's in Baltimore but they don't do curb service and the rootbeer just doesn't taste as sweet as it did on sticky nights in July.

I've had my time with illegal fireworks as well. One summer a bunch of my neighborhood pals decided to make a movie that called for a pick-up truck to explode. I dug through my Dad's stash of taboo fireworks imported from exotic Pennsylvania and decided to use an M-80. Now this wasn't a stick the M-80 inside the window, light it and watch it blow up deal... we actually bought a model and assembled it around the explosive. Next we built a base so the truck would remain stationary when it blew up - hoping it would appear more realistic. Anyway, when it came time to shoot the "scene" it came off surprisingly well though I think my ears were ringing for a couple hours afterwards. I’m probably lucky I didn’t get a shard of Revell model imbedded in my forehead.

I still play with fireworks and summer is not complete without getting a stockpile of them from "South Of The Border". I don't have any models left because I blew them all up too. My best explosion was cracking a commode.

• Slip-n'-Slides and Water Wiggles!
• A&W root beer floats
• The smell of a well-oiled baseball glove
• The drum-circles at Venice Beach
• Tide-pooling at Paradise Cove, Malibu
• Pixie-Sticks and sunflower-seeds in the North Venice Little League field dugouts!
• Kool-Aid stands (10-cents a cup!)
• Dodger games when Koufax or Drysdale were pitching
• Pacific Ocean Park's roller-coaster
• Body-surfing at lifeguard station 29
• Flexi-Flyer or clay-wheel skateboard rides down steep hills (watch out for little rocks!!)
• Foster's Freeze ice cream cones
• Throwing a nasty curve with a Whiffle-ball
• The sun burning through morning fog at Bay Street, Santa Monica Beach
• The 3-D, multi-media peep-show at the SM Pier arcade - the one that had the belly-dancer and smelled like perfume! Woo hoo!! 1960's version of porn!
• Virgin Mai Tais at Don the Beachcomber, Malibu
• Kelbo's on Pico!!
• Sears Tuff-Skin jeans with the double-knees
• New Keds! Or, Red-Ball Jets!
• Trading-in Blue-Chip or S&H Green Stamps for a plastic Winchester-style cap gun!
• Riding Schwinn Sting-Rays through the dirt-mud at Pen-Mar Park (pissed the groundskeepers right off!)
• Cotton Candy at the Long Beach "Pike"
• Three great bowling alleys: El Dorado, Jefferson Bowl and Samoa Lanes (great old palm-tree carpeting!)

[ Edited by: johntiki 2014-07-03 08:38 ]

Wow, Johntiki, that was really moving.

I was going to say that the smell of the streetcleaner spraying water on hot asphalt always got me, but now it just seems silly...

Growing up in NYC the Fourth of July sounded like a warzone. Me & my friends would spend literally hundreds of dollars between us buying illegal fireworks; Everyone was always on the lookout for anyone who's Dad or Uncle or older Brother was traveling to a state that sold fireworks and then trying to get them to pick us up a few mats of firecrackers or a couple dozen color rockets. By the beginning of June there would be a smattering of firecrackers or bottle rockets going off throughout the day, slowly building up over the next month to a crescendo of explosions, whistles, bangs & flashes of color everywhere on the night of the Fourth. As soon as it became dark enough we'd bring our parents & neighbors out by the street & put on a display of fireworks that could take 1/2 an hour to complete: from firecrackers & bottle rockets, to ground bloom flowers, set pieces & St Cathrine wheels, to fountains, color rockets & small mortars, we'd actually put on a pretty good show for a bunch of kids.

Unfortunately our focus on fireworks eventually started to turn it into a business crossed with extreme danger (Dynamite & TNT? Bulk deals with crooked cops? You bet!), but I still love that smell of fireworks on the wind just after the sun sets in the evening every Fourth of July.

Some things I remember.....

playing with sparklers on July 4 when fireworks were still legal in Torrance

going to Dodger games with Vin Scully playing on everyone's transistor radios....now when I go to the ballpark everyone listens on headphones.

seeing cheesy live-action Disney movies like "The Apple Dumpling Gang" in my jammies at the Torrance Drive-In or the Roadium

sliding down HOT metal slides at various local playgrounds

riding around in the rumble seat of our neighbor's 1930 Model A

road trips to visit my grandparents in Ogden. We'd always stop along the way to visit the amazing canyons in southern Utah. My grandparents had a HUGE tree in their backyard with a swing, cherry trees full of ripening fruit, and Grandma let me drink all the Frostie root beer I wanted. Sadly, that house and all my grandparents are long gone.

Every other summer, my family and I would go to this small town in the mountains above Estes Park, Colorado. The Fourth was always spent around a huge bonfire, which almost always got out of hand and the local fire department would come in with its antique fire engine.
On the off years, we spent our summers trying to find ways to stay out of the heat of San Antonio. My main memory from SA is of fireflies. And, the seething, soothing sound of cicadas in the night.

[ Edited by: Benehune on 2005-05-20 15:48 ]

I grew up on a Wisconsin farm, so most of my summer memories have to do with being outside there.

• watching my Dad and older brothers going out into the fields to bale hay, and coming back with a wagon stacked high, and a few years later being able to join them and sit on top of the ever growing stack of bales, and then I grew enough where I was eventually stacking the bales by yourself (not as much fun, but still fun at times).

• before dusk, walking out to the fields, and bringing the cows back to the barnyard. We had one milking cow (milked by hand) who would lead the way if tapped with astick, and a couple dozen non-milking heifers who would follow. It was usually so peaceful, walking out and back with the cows following home. Once back in the barnyard, we would turn on the switch which turned on the pump which churned cold water into the metal cow drinking tank - dipping your legs in the cool water was so refreshing. We had to remember to later turn the switch off, else the tank would overflow, and the well would be pumped dry.

• growing up on a farm, with a cow that gets milked twice a day, we didn't get to travel much. But every summer we took a one-day roadtrip to Wisconsin Dells. Even though we only stayed at the most 12 hours there, that place was like heaven to a young kid, and it still has a magical quality for me - in fact, I plan on spending a few days there after Chicago's Exotica. (I don't plan on baling any hay though)

There were also the local Firemen's picnics - the Vesper one featured a waterfight between local fire departments - a barrel hanging from a pulley wheel would be placed on a overhead horizontal cable, the two departments would face off on either end, and use their fire hoses to propel the barrel to the other department's side. I can still remember the sound of the stream of water hitting the barrel, and having water spray into the crowd, where the kids were always up front getting soaked.

those are a few of my spring/summer memories, for now.

Vern

• The smell of hot iceplant along the beach

• Chocolate-dipped soft-serve cones at Foster's Freeze

• After dinner, hearing the drone of the Goodyear blimp and running outside to stand or sit on the sidewalk and watch the beautiful multi-colored light show of patterns on the blimp's belly.

• The unreproduceable sound of an AM radio playing 1970s Rock'n Roll on a hot summer day, heat waves coming off the sidewalks. Riding barefoot down the street on my skateboard.

• Taking turns cranking the ice-cream maker with my Uncles and Cousins at barbecues at our house. Pouring crushed ice and rock-salt around the cannister and taking breaks to pick boysenberries and tangerines in my backyard.

Bodysurfing with my parents and sisters at Manhattan Beach on a Sunday afternoon until it got dark, then stopping at Baskin Robbins for an ice-cream cone on the way home. Rinsing the sand off my feet with the garden hose in the front yard before crawling into my bed and sleeping with perfect exhaustion.

There is a brief sceen in "The Razor's Edge" (The Bill Murray version) of a 4th of july party. It's 1917 or 18...and it's done perfectly.

The film was not acclaimed much, but I found that particular part incredibly warm and reminiscent to my own childhood 50 years later. Overfed people watching the warm summer sky as unwanted food smoulders away.

On 2005-05-20 20:12, Tiki_Bong wrote:
When I think back about the beautiful smells of sweet Summertime, I'd have to say my memories bring me back to 1975, and the smell of gasoline as me and my buddies huffed away at the tanks of our dirtbikes. Ah, life was good.

Huffing gas... that reminds me of the of the second memorable part of the summers in Colorado: the 1000 mile road trip in a VW bus with no AC. We just opened the windows and, "huffed gas." It was fun though, we would take out the middle row of seats, cover the floor with blankets and play board games. The best part was waiting for the Stuckeys restaurant. They had a vending machine like no other. It had those magnetic black/white dogs, bird calls, and magic tricks. That was the time before DVD's in cars and playscapes at McDonald's. We just played in the parking lot.

Come on people we've got to have more remembrances than these!

Who can forget the smell of your favorite local delicacies... for me it's the smell of steamed crabs. For those unfamiliar the steamed blue crab is Maryland's quintessential summer time institution. The crabs are steamed in Old Bay, a spicy powder whose aroma is enough to make a Marylander's mouth water, and when you go to a crab feast bushels of the spicy and salty crustaceans are dumped out onto picnic tables covered in day old newspaper and the picking and hammering begin. Now the goal with eating crabs is not to fill-up on them but to enjoy getting messy and spending hours chatting with friends and family while enjoying the summer weather and some ice-cold beers as well. When you were a kid you usually would spend the most time eating the claws... your parents would arm you with a wooden mallet, a Coca Cola and a roll of paper towels and you'd pound away on them. You usually ended up beating the claw flat and smashing pieces of the shell into the meat but it was always great fun. After you were done you'd wash you hands and face but for the next day or so afterwards you'd always find yourself smelling your hands... the delightful smell of the Old Bay was so strong that it tended to stay with you no matter how many times you washed. Now because of problems of over fishing in the Chesapeake Bay the crabbing industry is an absolute mess and most crabs you get are most likely imported from Louisiana but Marylanders never seem to tire of the summer ritual of eating crabs and will spent a ton of money to keep doing so. When the weather breaks and you're driving around with the windows open you always drive past a seafood place that sells steamed crabs and the smell hits you... your immediate vocal response is "I could go for some steamies!" But in the back of your mind you brain is shouting, "it's summertime!"

Where I grew up there was only one other family that lived with in walking distance of us to play with. We would fish or try to catch crawfish, or tadpoles.
Lay on our backs and watch the big puffy clouds go by.
At night there was fireflies to be caught. A local lab would pay a penny a firefly.

Bonfires, marshmello roasts, and the star! my god the stars! no city lights to mess things up.
We built forts out of old willow trees down by the creek.
lay pennies on the rail road tracks. There was the one summer when a train de-railed and most of it piled up in our field. Great fun to hang out and watch the little city that sprang up in the side field while big burly guys and heavy machinery worked to clear up the mess. We brought them lemon-aid they gave us all the fruit we could carry off from the box cars on there sides.

Ahhh... having to dust the house everyday due to the dust that would drift in from the old gravel road.
Jarts. I remember the time we tried to see if we could hit the target circle from tossing the jarts from the front yard over the house. ha ha. Little bro.'s landed soundly in the center of the old above ground pool. It was then that we went back to swimming in the creek...
That's just a very few things that springs to mind at the moment.

"School's Out" by Alice Cooper

Astro Pops at Little League games

Watermelon seed necklaces

the smell of Coppertone

the smell of a fresh cut lawn

fighting over who gets to crank the ice cream maker and who gets to salt the tank

the top 40 hits at the roller rink

I grew up on the DelMarVa (DELaware/MARyland/VirginiA) penninsula in the MAR part. I whole-heartedly agree with you JohnTiki about the Old Bay and Crab smell. Let me also add:
Off Mosquito Spray..standing and turning round and round with eyes closed and breath held while Mom did the honors with the spray.
Running along with the big pick-up truck "fogger" that was bug bombing the neighborhood at dusk (maybe that explains a few things...)
No cable TV (I still don't have it, amazing how much time there is when you rarely watch TV) and barely any broadcast TV close enough to watch
Silver Queen corn and other produce for sale everywhere along the roads.
Not having air conditioning and not knowing that you missed it. Honestly, none of my schools had it and I knew no one whose home had it. So as far as I knew, it was a treat experienced only at some stores, restaurants and the movie theater. We would sometimes sleep on the screened porch at the worst part of the heat and humidity.
Home-made ice cream with the hand-cranked barrel-staved maker.
Reading, reading, reading oh how I love the public library.
Being a school boy with a rifle along with my well-armed friends and being thought of not as a threat or a psycho, but just as a normal kid who liked to target shoot at the sand pit.
Going to the beach at Assateague, Virginia, literally every day and having locals outnumber tourists by a long shot.
No chain restaurants whatsoever.
True funny story, I used to go with my Mom to Chincoteague Virginia to the "Russell Fish Company" to buy seafood literally right off the boat. My Mom always called the man "Mister Russell" and he answered to it. It turns out that his first name is Russell and his last name Fish but since he was a lot older than my Mom and because of the Southern tradition of it being ok and respectful for kids to call adults or for younger folks to call folks older than them by their first name as long as it was proceeded by Mr. or Miss he thought nothing of it. Maybe this is only funny in the South.
Going "bike riding" with no particular destination in mind or reported to parents. In fact, I realize that at 40 years of age, I was once a member of what is now an endangered species, the free-range child. We would leave in the morning, eat lunch at whosever house(s) we were in at the time and return home at dusk or dinner, whichever came first. No cell phones, no problems. People looked out for each other and each others kids. We really had the run of my small town and loved it. Just by hanging out in various shops I learned to work on small (and large)engines, fix a carbon arc movie projector, dirve all manner of odd vehicles, help build home-built aircraft etc etc
Now, the kids go from soccer, to ballet/tap/tumbling to fast-food restaurant to whatever crap "enrichment" program someone can charge parents for. Sheese, life is too short not to let kids enjoy being kids.

Wow...taking me away. Better than Calgon!
Definitely the above ground pool. Nana's would get new vinyl before every Memorial Day. Love that smell. And the new rafts!
The smell of 2 stroke when my dad would pull out my little ATC for Spring.
The sweet broom that bloomed under my bedroom window.
The deep gurgle of the creek, also outside my window, after we'd build the "Damn Dam" for our summer swim hole. We could only block it up after Spring rain was over.
My horses quietly munching, again, outside my window, on warm evenings. They were let into the creek pasture at the start of fire season to eat the weeds. They'd spend the night right under my window.
Hiking to "The Platform" half way up the mountain in back of our house. Wait 'til 9PM for Disneyland's fireworks. We could actually see them, although we were about 50 miles away! (Grew up in a canyon of the Saddleback Mountains in OC, CA.)
Not a fond memory, but summer break always brings this to mind...Being scared as hell when in '84-'85 all I heard on the radio/TV was about the Nigh Stalker. I didn't want to leave my window open, like his victims had Maybe he'd come all the way out to BFE here and kill us all and hole up!! So we drove around in my boyfriend's convertabile all night almost every night. I remember the scent of orange blossoms and sea salt when we'd drive by the ocean. And I remember being mad that I couldn't just relax and enjoy the warm night air outside that awesome bedroom window!

I came across this thread when searching for a summer music thread and figured after half a decade without a comment it should get bumped.

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.

Huntington Beach, CA 4th of Julys - the day started with a parade in the morning and then an afternoon free at the beach with family and friends, BarBQ and then fireworks on the sand when the sun went down. I vividly remember packed crowds of people on the sand (north of and south of the fishing pier) throwing lit fireworks, firecrackers, rockets, roman candles, Piccolo Petes, sparklers etc over the pier and onto each other...usually ending in several mini-riots as the cops would attempt to disperse the scene...literally people running wild in the streets having a good ole time. Seems like a dream now 'cause HB cops are, well you know, HB cops...

Long Beach, CA - summer arrived when my dad would take me and a couple buddies to the Pike for a day of amusement park fun. I rarely wanted to go to Disneyland - if I had my way I always chose the Pike. Dirt and grime and street reality w/cops on foot patrol. Pot smoke in the dark-ride buildings.

Summer was also the Fun Zone at Balboa in Newport Beach - bumper cars and Ferris wheel and a ride across to Lido Isle on the auto ferry...watching Coppertone bikinis w/long blond hair. My first ever "job" was inflating balloons and running the dart booth (pre-teen) for a few weeks circa '74.

Fish and finger-pie in the schoolyard laying in clover fields.

Riding bikes all over town; hell, all over ORANGE COUNTY. The Santa Ana river bottom was the spine to destinations north or south, usually south.

Surfing early in the mornings before "tourists" & "in-landers" take over.

Music? For whatever reason "The Ballroom Blitz" by the Sweet rises to the top of memory.
Those early days of the 70s were a bit thin on testosterone fueled pop-music.

Now, almost half a century later, summer means working inside a concrete office.