My Top 10 Childhood Summer Memories

 

My Top 10 Childhood Summer Memories

 

10. Playing kickball in our suburban D.C. yard until past dark, with the fireflies coming out and the crickets chirping and finally everyone’s parents calling them to come home.

 

9. Lying on the glider on my grandparents’ screen porch in New Jersey reading the Fairy Books of different colors, for endless hours.

 

8. Acting out various characters’ lines from Louise Fitzhugh’s The Long Secret (yes, we loved Harriet the Spy, but The Long Secret captured our attention that particular summer).

 

7. Finding out, while at my grandparents' in New Jersey, that Nixon resigned  and (even as a young kid) wishing I was home in D.C., where the action was.

 

6. Becoming so obsessed with Elizabeth Enright’s series that started with The Saturdays that I asked my grandparents’ across-the-street neighbors if I could have their daughter’s copies of the books. They were kind enough to say yes.

 

5. Spending many, many afternoons at the neighborhood pool, having backflip contests in the water, drinking orange drink from the vending machine and watching bees buzzing around the trash can, and braving the high dive.

 

4. Playing endless games of Life and Happiness and Monopoly on the floor of the den. Usually losing.

 

3. Standing on my head for lengthy periods of time.

 

2. Sleeping over at my cousins’ house or my friends’ houses and staying up late watching TV.

 

1. Celebrating my August birthday, often with assorted Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors and cake.

Hope everyone has a good summer!

 

--Deborah Kalb