PB 12 Memories

Childhood Summers

When I was a kid, my country neighborhood

reverberated with noises of barefoot children

running over green grass,

tarred and graveled roads,

through rocky cold-water creeks,

and even pine-needled woods,

playing all kinds of ball, badminton, croquet,

Hide and Seek, Sardines, Statue,

Little Red House on the Hill,

Hopscotch, jump rope, and Four Square,

pretend games of house, submarine, space ship

and Gilligan’s Island and Man from UNCLE,

riding bikes and the flying jenny,

building dams in the creek, roller skating,

flinging crab apples on flexible sticks,

swinging on swings and vines,

rolling down hills in cardboard boxes

and inside tractor tires, walking on stilts,

sharing a watermelon at Pappaps

and spitting seeds at each other,

licking popsicles on a 90 degree day,

snacking on plums, apples, grapes,

elderberries, and blackberries

right off the tree or bush.

Looking back on it reminds me

to keep “having fun” on my to-do list.