It’s chilly, cloudy, and already almost dark outside and, for various reasons, being a Grown-Up Adult is really teh suxx right now. So, I want to think happy thoughts about childhood and innocence and summer break and rainbows and sprinkles.
I’ll pop back in and share mine but 1) I kinda wanna see where this thread goes, and 2) yet another fire popped up at work (minor, but this time it’s my fault, so I gotta bust my ass and fix it quick.)
First thing? Going on lizard hunting expeditions. Growing up in San Diego in the early 60s, there were canyons and mesas right across the street that seemed to go on forever. My brother and I and our friends spent many happy days roaming around and looking for horny toads, whiptails, alligator lizards, and assorted snakes.
Summer camp. I went to the same camp every year for 8 years. It was only one week of the summer, but I had friends I looked forward to seeing and bunking with. Various activities in the morning, swimming in the river all afternoon. I had my first kiss at summer camp.
Melting gummi bears into a colorful, goopy swirl. I associate it with summer because a) it’s insanely messy so I only ate it in a bikini at the pool, and b) I discovered it by accident, because I was swimming in 100+ heat and decided, hey, I want gummi bears!
Those of you with no hot summers can approximate the joy with a short zap in the microwave, but you still really need the bikini and pool. 
Being over at my aunt’s house with my cousin Dawn. My aunt had a shower attached to her garage (used to have a pool) and we were running under the shower in our matching bathing suits…we were about 5
The creek across the road from my elementary school. It was surrounded by lush vegetation (or what seemed like lush vegetation when I was a child), and had all sorts of interesting water bugs, tadpoles, and if you were really lucky, tiny little frogs. Sometimes we caught a tadpole and took it home to watch it become a frog, but it never did. I used to have recurring dreams about the creek. In my dreams I’d be sailing down the creek on a raft, and eventually I’d get to a place where the grass was orange, and the trees were purple, and there were people living in treehouses…
A Christmas morning (circa 1970): my brother and I riding our new bicycles around outside in the street at about 6.00am, dressed in our pyjamas, with all of the other neighbourhood kids doing much the same thing.
Catching butterflies in the field behind our house. When I was in Cub Scouts, a lady came to one of our meetings and showed us how to build an insect collection. In my case it became one of my serious hobbies. Our neighborhood was largely undeveloped at the time, with lots of woods, creeks and fields. Nothing says “summer” to me like moving slowly, net in hand, sneaking up on a tiger swallowtail.
When there was no rain for weeks on end I’d make a tent out by the garage out of sheets with an old mattress for the base. Great for playing in when other kids came round or reading in. I’d keep one side open so I could see the flowers.
Being called inside to watch The Muppet Show and my feet are all dirty. Mom made orange fluff yay!
Now, the orange fluff she made isn’t what I find on the Internet, which includes Cool Whip and oranges and pineapples. This is like orange juice and egg whites or something. I have no idea what it was but I totally remember it. It was like Jello but full of air.
There was a marsh at the end of the block that we tiny tots were not supposed to visit. Actually, I don’t recall being told not to visit, but it was squishy and ooky and all the things that our mothers didn’t like. So we visited. And brought home prize frogs and flowers and mud on our shoes, pants and everywhere else. Then we moved away when I turned six. My memories are good.
I lived in the area briefly as an adult and went back to the swamp. It had been civilized to the point of having a paved walking path but was still shady and damp with ook and muck at the edges of the path and wild raspberry bushes all over. I didn’t remember those. I asked Mom and she said the raspberries were why she tolerated the ook and muck when we were little. Nice.
Catching fireflies at dusk and putting them in an old mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the lid.
You stole my post. Except we had a pool, not a river.
Napping on the hammock with the dog after a long day of races with my friends in the neighborhood.
Also, jumping off the rope swing into the lake at my friend’s house after working her horses all morning.
When I was about eight years old, my family went to visit a friend of my father’s who lived on a 100 acre farm. They had horses, chickens, pigs, cows and what seemed to this city boy to be endless fields of vegetables.
That day I got to ride a horse, hunt for eggs and churn butter. I also ate a meal that consisted of corn I picked, fresh-churned butter, other vegetables picked that day, burgers and chicken from the farm, and fresh unpasteurized milk. It was an amazing day.
The first thing is playing in the lilac bush. That’s not really interesting, but it’s the first thing the popped into my head. I’m certain that it represents all of the fun stuff that I did in my rural environment.
Simply walking out the door and not having to worry about a damn thing. Spending the day bike riding…going to the park…buying candy at the store…either by myself or with my best friend. No adults, no sunscreen, no rules other than “don’t get into a stranger’s car.”
My earliest memory is of being out in the yard, in the sandbox or something, on a summer day, and suddenly being overwhelmed by this ecstatic realization of how incredible life was. That memory has been kind of a touchstone for me throughout my life. It’s kind of like what H.P. Lovecraft describes in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (and interestingly, he was a Rhode Islander, just like me).
I was lucky to have a wealth of nice places to be as I was growing up… I was in the suburbs, but we had a couple of large patches of wooded land within easy walking distance, so there were a lot of magical little places, including a pond you could swim in (a real beach with a lifeguard). Also, my grandmother had a farmhouse with about 10 acres of land, and we went there frequently to visit.
Our house was built on swamp land and there were no end of toads and guppies. I would build houses for the toads out of bricks. Not that they appreciated my efforts, they just hopped away.
Boy Scout summer camp. I can still see the tents and the camp site that was built & maintained by scouts All the railings, foot bridges etc. were made from tree branches & tied with clove hitches.
Went twice every summer. First week with my own troop. Then another week as a guest of another troop. Mom & Dad didn’t mind paying for two weeks of camp.