Ahhh summer!

Fireflies and the moon, packing 5 kids and the parents in the old station
wagon and heading to the nearest swimming hole, cookouts every weekend, weeding the garden, mowing the stupid lawn, mucking out the cows and the chickens, sneaking cigarettes when we mucked out cause who could smell them with all that manure?

Going to our family's summer cabin on the island every summer after we bought it, swimming in the crystal clear lake, laying on the granite slabs at the point, floating around in the boat at night laying on our backs and watching the stars, waking up to the smell of the cabin and my mom putting the old tin coffeepot on the woodstove and the smell of coffee, pancakes and woodsmoke, picking buckets of blueberries and raspberries, fishing every day cause we had to eat, reading the old books that came with the cabin by the old Aladdin lamp and the smell of those books and the kerosene, pine needles and teaberries...

I can see it all and I remember all the smells, mildew when it rained for weeks and not being able to dry anything...oh wait...that's now...LMAO!

Two words for my childhood and adult years, road trips. That's how we always spent our summers for as long as I can remember, still do.

Yes, Dej, you got the idea. We're not in Kansas anymore..

Since MS, my summers get more unbearable every year. I have to close my eyes and remember the good times, to stay sane.

Thanks all for letting me share in your wonderful summers..

Spent most of my childhood doing the same! Except our cows were for eating, not milking .

After age 18... I baby sat in the mornings, spent the afternoons at the pool, spent the evenings in English Comp and Calculus classes. Once I transferred from "junior" college to the University, I worked 20 hours a day in the work study program and carried 12 hours of classes all summer. Got married at 21, finished college in the Spring of 1981 and moved to Ohio with my hubby.

Didn't have much time for play as I wanted out of "h-e-l-l and back", Mississippi! Not that it is a bad place, I just wanted to be able to do more than rub two nickels together and wish for more.

We also had cows for eating

This is a fun thread, Sally!

I remember making trips across Death Valley en route from California to Utah to see my Aunts and cousins. Sometimes we drove at night to avoid the stifling heat.

When I was, uhh, 1 year old or so, I remember Dad bought a brand new 1964 Dodge Dart with air conditioning! White exterior, black interior with Push-buttons for the radio stations! While others would put a wet towel on their head and stick it out the window, we stayed cool with the windows rolled up! Still remember that new car smell. Ahhh!

I knew we were nearing Salt Lake City when we saw those Barbasol signs spaced every quarter mile or so:

Dim your lights
Behind a car
Let folks see
How bright YOU are
BurmaShave

Another summer I spent in So. Pasadena with my niece (approx. same age). We swam every single day in the apt. pool, then cleaned out the fridge cause we were Starving! I remember my brother (18 yrs older than me) complaining that they kept running out of food!

The majority of Australians mostly did (and still frequently do) spend their summers near the water. With us living on a big island almost everything in the summer is water orientated, and most people head to the beach, the lakes or our rivers.

Lots of people have beach or lakeside houses, and many have boats. There are stacks of boating activities like ocean, lake or river fishing, plus all the water sports like scuba diving, snorkelling, rowing, and water skiing, etc.

I left home at 17 to start my nursing training, and back then it was compulsory to live in the nurse's quarters until you finished your course, but before that I had to pick fruit to earn any money. Mostly it was apples, or berry fruit like raspberries and red currants. I also picked beans when they were in season.

It really was hard work, and that would have been the time I first got introduced to back pain! It certainly didn't pay well, but it was about all my parents would agree to until I went nursing. (The age of consent was 21 back in those days).

My summers were spent playing and playing hard. There was so much to be done in the woods; forts to build, paths to be made, ponds and creeks to play in, fish to try to catch with our bare hands, plants to look at and find, and skunks to avoid. LOL

In the "hood" there was so many fun games to be played, traditional ones as well as made up ones, and all the neighborhood kids would be out playing. We rode our bikes, walked, or ran all over the place.

It was very rare that we ever went on a "vacation" away from home. But I will say that my parents amaze me. One summer, 1969????, my ambitious parents decided to take a camping trip from NY to NM with 9 kids (the youngest wasn't born yet) all of us under the age of 10. My dad modified our VW microbus and put in a storage bench. They loaded up all the equipment, tents, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, etc., playpen in the back for the wee little ones, loaded up us kids, and off to NM we went.

To this day, they laugh about the adventures and thing that happened along the way including one campground flooding during the middle of the night and my mom and dad getting all us kids in the microbus and taking down the tent and loading everything up. I remember waking up in the microbus and my dad in a bad mood. LOL

Of course, on the way home, the microbus broke down outside of Des Moines, Iowa. In my 4-year old mind, I thought we were just going to die in the middle of nowhere and was worried about my dad as he and one of my brothers went with a STRANGER to get help. We somehow got towed in to Des Moines, the microbus got fixed, and my frustrated dad drove straight through the day and night home to NY.