Summer Vacation

Earlier this week, I read a great piece by Melissa Fenton that was published in the Huntington Post about growing up in the 70's. It is entitled 10 Ways to Give Your Kids an Honest-to-Goodness 1970s Summer." It's definitely worth checking out and I think many people of a certain age will relate to it: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-fenton/10-ways-to-give-your-kids-an-honest-to-goodness-1l970s-summer_b_5484462.htm).

It reminded me of my carefree childhood years during the 70's, and it helped bring back many wonderful memories of growing up in Raymond:  

• Playing at the "new" Raymond Park when the trees were just small saplings and there was no shade. The brand new aluminum sliding board seemed so tall, and it got so hot in the summer. We played on it anyway, and always brought a couple of sheets of wax paper along for maximum sliding potential.
• Playing Hide and Seek, Red Light/Green Light, Mother May I, and Red Rover until the streetlights came on.
• Pam being grounded for not going home when the streetlights came on.
• Running Lemonade/Koolaid stands at the corner of  Oak Street and the Black Diamond/East Road. If business was good and we ran out of styrofoam cups, we borrowed those plastic, pastel Tupperware glasses from someone's mom and promised to return them.
• Having walnut fights, mudball fights, water fights, and even BB gun fights with the neighborhood boys (Rick and Joe Ondrey, Toby and Keith Dean, and Danny Bob Hough). Also, playing "school" in our garage with that same crew (Pam and I were always the teachers).
• Riding our bikes directly behind the bug sprayer (inhaling all that insecticide and loving the smell of it!).
• Riding a go cart with the Ondrey boys up and down the street in front of their house, and riding a mini-bike and three wheeler with Brenda and Roger Myers in the alley next to the Standard Station. (I never wore a helmet and I almost always got a burn on my right leg from the exhaust pipe, but it was so much fun, who cared?)  
• Staying up all night playing Clue and Aggravation with Dena in the Pitchford family camper that was parked in their driveway. 
• Going to Bible School.
• Sunday afternoon fishing with Dad -- usually we would go to the Five Mile Bridge for a few hours, and then make a stop at Horseradish Lane to see if anything was biting. The last stop, around dusk, would always be the Gun Club so we could use up the worms.   
• Waking up with poison ivy after the Sunday fishing trip.
• Visiting with the next door neighbors after supper. Everyone would bring lawn chairs to Marge and Louie Krause's house and shoot the breeze in the side yard.
• Playing with the Lanter kids (from the other side of town) when they visited their Aunt Jane's house. Looking for fossils with Sherri in Jane's landscaping rocks.
• Swinging on the rope swing in John and Dot Hough's back yard and then taking a break and eating apples off the trees in Mitch and Helen Engleman's back yard.
• Having a stomachache after eating too many green apples at Engleman's.
• Swimming at Camp Jomoco.
• Hanging out uptown at "The Gallery" with Robin Niepert, inventing new drinks at the soda fountain, and then walking a few doors down to the Lincolnwood Community Reading Center. Rita Todt was the librarian and she always helped us select just the right book.
• Alternating between playing with Matchbox cars and my Barbie camper.
• And the perfect end to a long summer day --  Going to the Lancer Den for ice cream, then riding around town in the back of Dad's pick-up truck, listening to the Card's game on KMOX.