Summer Nostalgia

 Last night after dinner, I sent a group text to my family, just shooting the breeze about our day. I sat down for a few minutes and ended up falling asleep hard. I woke up a bit later to all their responses, which included some questions. I made the mistake of trying to answer while still entirely incoherent, and I'm not sure anything made any sense to anyone!

Lesson learned: don't text while sleeping.

But after that, Ryan and I went out for a walk, and because I'd fallen asleep, it was almost dusk by the time we headed out. We made our way from street to street and Ryan commented that he loved hearing the sounds of a summer night. The cicadas and clopping horses (hello, Amish country!) took him back to his childhood in the country. He took a deep breath and declared summer nights to be his favorite. I told him all we needed was a lake and a swing. :) 

I started thinking about my own summer memories from when I was a kid:

* Mom always hung the laundry outside on the clothesline in the summer. I loved it when she washed the sheets and I could run between them when they were still damp. (Yes, I am aware now that it probably negated all the washing she just did.) But I loved the feel of cool sheets blowing against my cheek when I ran down the middle of the lines.

* My parents also had a pretty big garden when I was young, and I had fun hiding in the rows of sweet corn once they grew tall enough to be over my head. It was cool and shady between the stalks, and I loved it. 

* Then there were the corn shucking parties, which I did not love nearly as much, but I remember them. Dad would harvest the corn and roll it up to the house by the wheelbarrow load. We'd shuck it outside, where messes were no big deal, and then all the ears of shiny butter-colored corn would go into the house for Mom to freeze.

* We didn't have central air, and even though we did have a window unit in the kitchen, all Mom's canning overpowered it. I remember those super hot summer days when the house smelled of pickled beets and canned green beans. Mom would pull the sliding door shades shut and crank the air to try to cool the house, but I would head outside to the rows of corn. Much cooler.

* I remember the years our neighbors had an above ground pool and their kids invited me over almost every single day to swim. There were days when I woke up, put on my swimsuit, headed next door, and didn't come home until almost bedtime, except to run home for meals. I loved those years! 

* I remember riding my bike around the driveway - until I fell off said bike and broke my leg. 

* And I remember sitting in the swing in the backyard, watching lightning bugs fly across the yard in the evenings after dinner.

Then I grew up and had a home of my own, and I still loved summer evenings.

* I would take long walks through campus after work and dinner, running into college students still on campus for summer classes and sports. 

* I learned to grill on a tiny charcoal grill that I parked on my back patio. 

* And once Ryan and I got married, we'd spend our evenings on the cement slab, under the pirogi (remember that??) in the hammock or drinking coffee.

* And when we lived in Kokomo, we'd walk to the ice cream stand for a big scoop of some deliciousness.

We know fall isn't far, but for now we're soaking up the end of these beautiful summer days and making memories we can look back on months and years down the road.

How about you?? What do you love from summers gone by?