Summer Time II

Glen’s latest blog on “Summer Time” brought back some old memories for me, too.

I’ll never forget the old water fan sitting on the front porch, blowing cool air into the living room. Mike Mattison and I used to spend nights sleeping on the front porch, and that old water fan was loud. We slept there, probably, as much as anything, so we could sneak across the street and visit Gayle Wilson.

For some reason, it always seemed cooler going over there.

Or, we were just “cool,” because our parents nor her parents ever knew we were doing it. We didn’t go unless Gayle invited us, of course. It was her idea, but we nonetheless were quick to accept. Mike and I always made sure Gayle knew when we spending the night on my front porch, a screened-in version of a bedroom, if you will.

Other cool things we did at night was play “kick the can” out behind the Phillips 66 gas station. Hiding at night and running to kick that can was just one of the things we did for fun.

Another was sleeping in a tent in the back yard. Russell Walker and I did that a lot. It was hot sleeping in a tent, but that didn’t stop us from doing it. His dad had to get up around three o’clock in the morning to start his Holsum bread route. We were always awake and heard him. But we never let on that we were awake, though.

Then at times, we would go wondering up and down the block. Just because we could, I suppose. Maybe we thought we were getting away with something or doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. We might go over to the Babcock’s storm cellar.

Whatever. It was all fun. You think kids could get by with something like that in this day and time? You think kids even spend the night wondering around the neighborhood? I don’t think so.

We used to go down to the old ice house, not at night, but it was cool to go down there. The ice house was behind Buck Stewart’s house on the highway. The ice house was a tall structure with water running down the side of it, much like the water fan I mentioned earlier. I guess it provided an evaporative cooler, of sorts.

There were times when we climbed up it. Why, I don’t know. Probably, like I said, because we could.

Or, we used to go down to the bait shop and try to get into the sodas. The bait shop, though enclosed, only had a wire fence around it. And the soda machine was up next to the fence, so it was fairly easy to get to.

We did so many “cool” things, even when it was hot. Like Glen said, heat didn’t seem to bother us so much in those days.