It’s end-of-the-school-year time this week, and the girls are twirling around in a tizzy. Even I, usually not given to hysteria, feel the buzzing in the trees and backyard pools. Last night, from between tangled bedcovers Toots whispered, “I’m so excited,” right before her face collapsed into a pillow, wet with frantic post-happy-dance sweat. The last day of classes is coming fast, and Thursday is the final morning before my kids are officially in the first and third grades. Yet first, FIRST, there are pool parties and camping and possible NYC trips and water parks and my head spinning off its axis.
It all got me remembering what my mom possibly did to survive summer break with four children and a husband who traveled all the time. I recall a million “I’m boreds,” but also firefly-chasing, tree-frog-catching, swing-setting, and lake-splashing. As for junior high and high school breaks, I still see community pool visits with a Rick Springfield soundtrack, aluminum sun blankets, and my friend Anne’s yellow Volvo, which took us everywhere the summer of ’84.
All thoughts that bring me back to this morning when Toots woke well before I did, already in her bathing suit top and shorts with a packed beach bag at the door. Today is “water day” and the whole school turns into a crazy frothing mass of sprinkler kids. As we walked to school, I told the girls my favorite thing to do at the end of each school year: visit Holiday Park. It was a rite of passage of sorts, because only fifth through eighth graders were allowed to board the bus for the day, spending it jumping off piers, playing miniature golf, and wandering the grassy areas looking for boys or girls.
The very first time I shaved my legs was for a Holiday Park trip.
Despite working from home, stressing out, and wondering how I’m going to keep up this summer, all I can think is I want my kids to look back at these wonderful times 30 years from now.
So for this week’s PROMPTuesday, recall a fond summer memory from your childhood, and write it down. The more descriptive, the better.
I’ll be doing the same since there’s so many Holiday Park moments left to relive, and only in my mind, because the piers and the golf course and grassy courting areas have long since been plowed under for a condominium park. A fact that makes me inexplicably sad because it’s as if the whole place didn’t exist, making true what they say: you can never go back.
Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.
P.S. for the next 15 days, I’m participating in this writers’ challenge. If you’re all into it, check it out here.
I never remember being bored as a kid. Maybe I was, but I always had my nose in a book if I wasn’t out playing.
I miss summer break. I remember it mostly in middle school and high school, the time before is a fuzziness of camp. But when I was old enough to stay home while my parents worked I remember riding my bike with no hands, I remember going to the beach and the pool. I remember lounging around watching Days of Our Lives. I remember my best friend coming over and drinking Tropical Punch and Malibu and feeling very sophisticated. I remember lots of drives. I can’t imagine that much driving on today’s gas prices, but then we just drove to drive. :-)
I was fortunate that I had a lovely childhood. I was such an outgoing kid. I remember that I used to be outside all the time, playing and having fun with friends until my parents called me in for dinner.