Summertime
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| Labor Day 2010 |
I had my son's daughters over this weekend to help clean off the back porch. Well, I didn't have them over just to work but they actually liked scrubbing the lawn furniture and washing the dirt and pollen off the floor.
It made me remember Mama spraying the front porch with water from a rubber hose trying to cool the house down. I loved the cold water running over my bare feet. I remember her hair in pin curls and wrapped in a chiffon scarf with the cuffs of her shorts rolled up into short shorts.
The library used to be in the Court House downtown. Mama would let me and my brother walk to the library to get an armful of books to read every week. It was always shady and cool as we cut across Filmore Street. The library was cool too but I don't know if it was because it was air conditioned or just because it was in the basement. Mama would have us get her an Earle Stanley Gardner, Victoria Holt, or Phyllis Whitney book. If I brought one home that she had already read, she would say, "I'll just read it again."
After Daddy got off work, he would take us for a ride in the country. Very few country roads were paved back then. We rolled all the windows down and were content sitting in the back with the wind, dust, and Mama's cigarette ashes blowing in our hair. Daddy always knew when a little dip in the road was coming up because he would speed up fast enough to make the car sail through the air. I loved that butterflies in my stomach feeling.
If we had money, Daddy would stop at a service station and let us pick out a cold soda. I was really partial to the 6 oz. Coca Cola's but got a Grapette just as often. Sometimes he would stop at the Frosty Mug for a icy cold root beer. We usually saved that for after a drive-in movie though.
When we got back home, I would get my bath, put on my shorty pajamas, and read Nancy Drew late into the night.
I may not have always been a happy child but I only remember happiness. A gift from "my people."
sounds like it straight out of a tv show. :)
ReplyDeleteMemories from childhood - yours and mine are similar in some respects. I too remember summer night car rides for ice cream or a cold pop.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a very happy childhood :)
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how a smell or sound or something similar to a childhood memory opens the flood-gates of memories.
Thanks for sharing.
Just reading your thoughts got me remembering some of my summer days gone by :)
It is interesting how a scene or action can jog the memory of other times. A great recall of childhood memories.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful post! I love it all, but especially this: 'I may not have always been a happy child but I only remember happiness. A gift from "my people."'
ReplyDeleteI can just see all this as you speak. With the exception of my parents not smoking (strict Baptists) we grew up in much the same way. I loved those thin cotton summer pjs. Your parents seem so kind.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it wonderful we have those childhood memories ~ good ones. Can't you still just smell the courthouse: cigar smoke, medicine from the health office, the smell of books.
ReplyDeleteThe library was one of my great memories and I took my children when they were growing up.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Stewart was great, no one like him today.
Such a beautiful gift from your people!
ReplyDeleteI love going to the library now. I don't remember going when I was a kid.
You write so beautifully. I can picture your words in my mind. I could walk to the library as a kid too. Great memories.
ReplyDelete(and my mom loved for me to read her Phyllis Whitney)
You always bring back the nicest memories for me. I remember rides on Sunday afternoons in the country; reading Nancy Drew; loving the way the library smelled! You always have your finger on the pulse of that special time!
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