Wintertime Reveries

Like many in Missouri, I am wrapped in a fuzzy blanket sitting close to the heat with the cat on my feet. There is room for him and the laptop when I am lazily skimming from one screen to another, but not this morning. I have thoughts to think and words to write so I can’t share my lap and attention simultaneously with Scooter just now.

My mind has wandered to summertime! And specifically to summers in St. Louis. Since my folks didn’t move here until the end of my junior year in high school, most of my memories are of sultry city summers. Trips to see grandparents in Ripley County were always a part of those school breaks and naturally included refreshing swims in Current River.

Backyard fun with family and neighbor kids is forefront in my recollections. I don’t have any memories of my dad cooking INSIDE, but he grilled plenty of hamburgers, hot dogs and pork steaks OUTSIDE. Picnicking in our own backyard was such a simple event, but such fun! How we managed without air conditioning is a bit of a mystery, but we always had fans and shade trees. And pools. How could I forget?

The swimming pools that stand out most were blue square ones with little triangular seats in each corner. They weren’t deep or spacious. Mom and Dad would sit a spell, then us kids would get in, but it would have been like sitting in a puddle the size of a teacup if all five of us had tried to cool off at the same time. There was no swimming going on. Trust me. But did we care? Nope.

Such summer suppers usually followed a day of grass cutting. Mowing seems too fancy a word for what Dad did with the motorless, rotary contraption followed by a close trim with clippers around the fence and flowerbeds. If he was lucky, we were off on our bikes to the park with the neighborhood kids, so out of his way.

We could hear the bombpop man from far away, though, so we could pedal back just in time for the chaotic scramble for change to savor the colorful frozen treat. It never spoiled our supper.