I wonder sometimes what the minions will remember about their childhoods since they spend most of their time watching TV or playing video games. So I thought I'd list some of the ways that my summers were superior.
- Going to the "lease" several weekends a summer with my grandmother and fishing and swimming in the several ponds on the property.
- How grandma never remembered to bring water so we always had to sip her beer.
- My cousin telling the that touching a fish head would give me stomach worms 8 feet long.
- Another cousin telling me that the ponds had leeches. That was the last time I ever went swimming at the lease. :*(
- Spending a week every summer with yet another cousin.
- Running the house down the alley that ran beside her house and stomping the silt that gathered at the end into "chocolate milk" for hours at a time.
- Watching every Van Damme movie made up 1993 that summer.
- That was around the same time that I watched Terminator 2 and got the devastating crush on Edward Furlong.
- Pretending to be a mermaid in the kiddie pool by dragging my legs behind me while I pulled myself in circles using my hands.
- Sitting in front of the screen door after dark and the way the wind smelled once it started to cool off and blow in with little puffs.
- Having a sleep over with my cousins and being scared until one of them caught a firefly and rubbed it's butt gunk on my finger for a "night light".
- Staying up late after my grandma fell asleep and watching USA's "Up All Night" programming which followed the Friday night "scary" lineup.
- Eating the green apples off my grandma's tree whenever she wasn't watching and then having a bellyache. Just to do it all over again later.
- Watching a slasher movie with my cousin while we were home alone and then having to call our aunt to come over when we heard noises from upstairs.
- Reading outside in a thick clover patch on a blanket, sometimes until I fell asleep and then waking up at 2 or 3 am, covered in dew and mosquito bites.
- Walking to the used bookstore around the corner and coming home with piles of books for only a few dollars. That was the summer I read Piers Anthony's Xanth series.
- Reading Stephen King's it 3 times in a row because I couldn't stand for it to be over.
- Putting my siblings and the kids my stepmom babysat to work writing stories and comics for the family newspaper I put together.
- Going to Arkansas the year I turned 15 and going swimming every day, walking for miles, and spending nearly every evening at the races with my grandpa.
- Going to summer camp and having one of the best times of my life.
- Watching one of the million and one sequels to the Parent Trap and watching one of the girls kiss a boy and thinking, Jesus, I'd really like to do that one of these days.
jun 4 2011 ∞
jun 4 2011 +