Remembering Past Summer Days

 

Originally Published in 1953

While at my local New York Public Library researching lions, turtles, and spiders for future Story Clubhouse episodes, I spied this gem of a book, "On a Summer Day."

Lois Lenski is a favorite of my dear friend, author / illustrator Lizzy Rockwell. And I'd never seen this book before.

So, I piled "On a Summer Day" on top of my 'science' books and headed for a table. I confess I read it first. I was so blown away by the words and scenes inside. Kids playing like real kids played, like my sister and brother and I did as children....pretending to chew on hay...actually doing it sometimes, acting like dogs, being wheel 

Playing "Horsey"

barrows and so many other things that kids used to do when our entire summer days from morning to sun down were spent playing outside. Free from shoes, parents, and any expectation that our clothes would be clean or undamaged at the end of the day.

I'm sure there are children somewhere who still spend their days outside, but I don't know any.

Honestly, at the time, I would have liked to have been in air-conditioning on hot Kansas summer days, watching television, but that wasn't the life back then. We were out playing restaurant, serving soup to my brother made from grass and mud puddle water, collecting rocks for our rock store, jumping off the barn into soft grass, climbing up into a tall 

Playing Dog

tree and watching people come and go from my father's veterinary clinic, digging a swimming pool, using and losing the household spoons in the process....the list goes on and on.

To this day the three of us can claim to never being bored. I wonder if it's because during our early years we learned that we were the masters of our days and could have them be anything we wanted.

Here's wishing everyone, young, middle, and old, the gift of playing freely and making your days anything you want them to be.