by Joanne Wiklund
Remember Summer? This is it, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like it. When it rains all the time, or the sun bakes everything for days. Summer has changed since I was a kid. We had tadpoles, baby catfish and sand turtles in an old Coca Cola metal case in the garage. Mom would wander through once in a while and come tell us to change the water or empty it completely. Phew! Stagnant water smells awful!
My three brothers built tents over the clothesline with an old Army blanket full of moth holes. They laid on other blankets and read comic books while they slurped up popsicles. We took turns pushing the lawn mower, one of those old reel type mowers which was nearly impossible to push through long grass. We knew better than to tell our mom or dad we were bored. If we hung around too long inside, one of them would give us a hand sickle and tell us to go cut some weeds.
When it was hot, really hot, we didn’t sleep upstairs in our beds. We took sheets to lay on, found an open window downstairs and tried to get as close to it as we could, searching for any breeze at all. Fans were few and far between. The screened in back porch housed us all many a night. No beds, just linoleum and blankets covered with a sheet.
But I don’t think back and feel deprived at all. Everyone we knew was doing the same thing. Most kids took their shoes off when school got out and put them back on, newer bigger ones, when school started after Labor Day. Memories sustain us and make us laugh. We need more laughs the older we get. Don’t forget to laugh, even if what you do seems to be the only thing that’s funny any more!
Psalms 37:13 “The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.”
Psalms 37:1 “Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. 3. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. 4 Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
