Welcome Summer! With help from Google, I found out that in the city where I live, Canfield, Ohio, the warm weather season lasts only 3.8 months. The average temperature is 73 degrees. That means we have to take full advantage of being outside!
There was always a buzz of noise in my old neighborhood in the summers of the late 1970s during daylight hours. You would hear conversations, laughing, screen doors slamming, balls being kicked, bikes skidding, and sounds of lawn sprinklers. But summer nights were my favorite!
I looked forward to the bright orange sun settling in the night sky. I loved it when the air was still warm and humid as dusk approached. A quietness enveloped Dartmouth Ave. for about an hour as my friends and I were expected to be home to eat dinner.
When the sky turned dim, I would coast down the hill on my green 10-speed bike to hang out with the neighborhood kids to play a serious game of Ghost In The Graveyard or Hide-And-Seek. We would run around houses, hide behind bushes dodging the person who was IT. We would play for hours. If we got thirsty, we would find a garden hose to get a drink…and I’m still here to talk about it..lol. When it got dark enough that it was getting hard to see, the rule was it was time to head home. I hated to ride up the hill to my house after a long day of playing outside. I was exhausted and sweaty from a hard day of being a kid.
However, the reward for the uphill climb was hearing the crickets that started their nightly rhythmic concert. It’s still one of my favorite sounds. Mom would summon me to take a much-needed bath. That would be followed by her putting stinky, pink calamine lotion on my mosquito bites with a cotton ball and having to wait in the bathroom so it could dry.
In those days it took about 2 minutes after my head hit the pillow that I would be asleep. When I think about it, I can distinctly remember the sound of our house attic fan that instantly relaxed me and lulled me to dreamland. Those summer nights were the best of times. Simple and magical. Ahhh…as they say, those were the good ole days!
Today, my Mom would have been 90 years old. Happy Birthday! I miss you every day.
Writer McWriterson
Oh, I love this. Do you remember the Japanese beetles that plagued us in the 80s? Traps were everywhere in our neighborhood. I wondered if it was a Midwest thing because I never heard of it again.
Such a lovely post. Thank you for the memories. ❤️
Melanie R
Growing up in the 1970’s was the best! I remember playing Kick the Can, Hide and Seek, and Ghosts in the Graveyard at night, too. Such great memories. I also remember the mosquito bites, catching fireflies, and then falling asleep all hot and sweaty in the doorway of my bedroom, because the only fan our family had was plugged in in the hallway, facing our bedrooms.