Fourth of July come and gone means summer is half over. More than half, if you’re a student or teacher. I’m old enough to recall when school always started the day after Labor Day. We were dismissed for summer vacation about the fifteenth of May, so that meant a good long stretch of time to mess around, complain of boredom, and plan activities with friends.
I feel sorry for the kids of today. All during school, their hours are planned for them, and summer isn’t any different. Some of my town friends were in 4-H clubs but my dad didn’t believe in wasting fuel to go anyplace unnecessary, even after we got a car. Before that, the question never came up. Not that I never saw my friends, just that if we arranged a couple of days in one another’s homes, we did it around mail day, and the traveler rode back and forth with the mailman. Hank was the mail guy, and seemed really old. He was, I guess, probably in his fifties. That’s old, when you’re only eight or ten.
Hank drove a battered jeep with no doors, and it took about an hour to go the 18 miles from Seneca to our ranch, over two track sand trails. He’d bring groceries, if requested; you sent a note to the store to put items on your account, and the next mail day they arrived. Nobody needed much because you bought flour and sugar and potatoes by the hundred-pound sack and had chickens and beef to butcher at home, plus a store of home canned goods to supplement whatever garden produce was available.
I feel sorry for today’s kids because there isn’t much of a chance to look forward to treats. A trip to town meant an ice cream cone, a bottle of pop, or maybe a candy bar. We didn’t have that stuff at home. My parents had a rule. We bought one case of pop when school got out. Twenty-four small glass bottles that went in a tank of water to keep cool. It was all mine, but I was allowed only one a day, and when it was gone it was gone, so I rationed it out for the whole summer. I didn’t even get the refund of 2 cents for an empty bottle when we returned them, but then you don’t need money when you stay home all the time.
I feel sorry for today’s kids because they don’t have the opportunity of looking forward for a week to the Sunday fishing trip, the annual circus in town, or sparklers at the Fourth of July picnic. And they don’t get time to imagine what a cloud shape looks like, catch fireflies, or watch activity in an ant hill.
I feel sorrier for the parents who’ve been indoctrinated to think it necessary to keep kids on the run to activities. Who work harder so they can afford to be gone more, and miss out on Sunday fishing trips, having family meals, and evening visits with neighbors. There was a lot not so good in the old days, but we traded off a lot of the good stuff for time that moves past in a blur. We never have time to enjoy summer anymore, and whose fault is that?
Meet me here next week and, meanwhile, do your best. Somebody might like it.