Login HereIs the summertime living easy where you are?
Special summertime easiness for me was on Cape Cod, particularly at Harwich Junior Theatre, where young thespians budded. When the school year ended, we'd trek north with our beagle wedged in the in-between section of the station wagon; we spent all summer at my dad's parents' house. Most long summer days were at the Grange where the Junior Theatre lived: learning lines, treading boards, piecing costumes together, and coaxing the old light board to create the right effects for yet another show. My favorite was Emil & The Detectives, forty years ago.
Then, my parents rebelled against the "perfect vacation" in the same place every year, and we spent a whole summer camping out West. First stop after my mom's parents' in St. Louis was Estes Park, Colorado, where we overstayed our carefully planned itinerary by two weeks! Summer in Rocky Mountain National Park was completely new and utterly delightful for two kids reared on the East Coast.
Another fun camping trip took us in our pop-up trailer to Montreal for Expo 67: Man and His World -- does anybody know what happened to Worlds Fairs, anyway?
Not a family vacation, but a Boy Scout Jamboree in Idaho in the hot summer of 1969, where thousands of Scouts watched men walk on the moon. After which, incidentally, my troop made a side trip to this strange and mysterious city, my first visit, but not my last....
As a grown-up, I've spent favorite summertimes at Kill Devil Hills, NC and at Nauset Beach, back on Cape Cod.
Share your summer memory or your special summer plan -- the living's easy now that it's summertime. Where's your summertime easiness? Now? Then? Soon?
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zed
Ah! Been a while since I did that. Hi TSF. Enjoying summer! And you?
We pulled a travel trailer around the country 40 years ago from Florida to British Columbia.
Ohmystars, Teddy! Is that Janis doing Summertime? That sucka is going to take me hours on dialup but will be worth it.
Thank you, thank you. Didja have a good pride weekend?
Suzanne @ 4
Howdy Suzanne. No perfect summer dive?
Teddy,
Tanks For the memory’s…
Well, it was Girl Scout Camp on Catalina Island. Made great new (short-lived) friends and learned to paddle a canoe.
Lots of Girl Scout Camp memories.
Does that make me old? Remembering childhood summers and not the ones in my 30’s, 40’s, etc.?
Tex, a simple but elegant swan dive downstairs.
I would also go walking out in the rangelands behind where we lived for 6, 7 hours at a time with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich, a canteen of water, and my .22.
We had a creek flowing by the property and there was this tree you could climb up then jump into a pool that was about 10 feet deep. Or you could swing out on a rope and drop in also.
Oh Teddy, you starry-eyed optimist
;>)
Right On Teddy!!! Janis!!!
Suzanne @ 7
ALL the judges gave it above 8, too!
Hey! Suzanne…
If it’s gonna be hot when I’m up there, can I come dip my toes (if not a full on Swan Dive)into your creek?)
Reading back what I wrote..this sounds Too late nite for me.
I also passed along the thread change to the last two, which somehow are still active…
Alfred Kelgarries @ 11
Even Bulgarian and Albanian?
Hello, everyone — we are stuffed fulla Pride at my house tonight. It was a beautiful SF day, and my fiance got the day off, so we saw part of the parade and then wandered around Civic Center for hours with large groups of gays and not-gays. Saw several friends I hadn’t seen in a while, which is always nice, and heard some good music.
Lots of summertime fun, with which I was infected when I came home and had this idea for the post.
Thank goodness for SPF-45 today!
Evening all. For me, at least the living is easy this summer. Hiking, fishing, & camping all summer long. Do have to finish off a MA student here in a couple of weeks, but that is easy.
demi, ankle deep and shin deep only in the summer and moves to fast when deeper…. but it is very very cold and your toes are welcome.
TexBetsy // TexB @ 14
Turns out they have weaknesses involving…maybe I should go no further. But they’ll behave now, TRUST ME. (Evil Grin)
Suzanne got a 10 from me downstairs … the chic of it all!
And Teddy - where did the Worlds Fairs go????
TSF, not sure about the blog or the blogger, but check out the Cheney graphics on this site.
DrDick @ 16
“Finish off” eh? Hmmmmm…….
DrDick @ 16
perhaps for those of not so academically aware, can you clarify on the “finishing off” of said MA student? Will we need to find a place to hide the body?
Alfred Kelgarries @ 13
Alfred, they are still active because we keep threads open for 24 hours to allow for discussions to continue. Conversations are not forced to stop just because a new thread is upstairs.
Oh Suzzzz..
My sweet girlscout girlfriend who lived in SLC, use to call me Pinktoes. Yay, I’ll come dip my toes and we can sip lemonade and yak, yak, yak.
Suzanne @ 23
Ahhhh! I never knew! I thought they locked you out in like five minutes after the next one started. dam you guys are good. You spoil us, you know that?
Hi Hi HI Hi Hi Hi Hi!!!!
Summer is the best! Sleep late. Baby-sit for money. Work on my award-winning blog. Hang out at the pool. Read books that are not for school. Stay up late. Summer is THE BEST!
TexBetsy // TexB @ 21
Perhaps I should have said “complete”. She is defending her thesis in about three weeks. She did really nice work and it has been a joy (and almost no effort on my part) working with her.
Well, it’s the dead of winter here. Of, course winter in Brisbane is about like summer in San Francisco but not as foggy.
As to vacations, I have adopted my late father’s definition of camping: staying at a hotel that lacks room service. I’m too old and too spoiled for a night in tent.
Glad Teddy had a good time at the Pride Parade.
TexBetsy // TexB @ 20
That’ll be his punishment at the hague; reading all the blog posts about him.
Alfred Kelgarries @ 11
That blasted Albanian judge was all set to give her a 5.6, when suddenly a spook appeared and tasered his *ss, so he flipped it to a 9.5 …
… woo hoo, Suz wins Gold !!!
Evenin’ all !!!
Happy Pride Day, TSF !!!
SnarKassandra @ 26
Welcome Cassie! Congrats on the awards!
Siun — I recall a lame-o Worlds Fair in Tennessee or Kentucky in the eighties, but have heard nothing about Worlds Fairs since. Anybody have an idea where they went? Maybe Halliburton bought them up and cancelled them, since they promoted worldwide goodwill. Can’t have too much of that.
That Ms Joplin sure was a wailer, wasn’t she?
Suz, shouldn’t there be a pool with a high dive in your photo album? Or at least a picture of a dollhouse pool with Mr. Bill atop the diving board ready to do his Greg Louganis backwards “OUCH!” imitation? (Oh no, Mr. Bill!) Just joking–I love your dives.
Good evening, all. Ah, summertime memories!
When I was a kid, we’d spend a good bit of the summer at Kilmarnock, VA (which is on the Northern Neck, between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers). There wasn’t a whole lot to do there in the early and mid ’70s, but we loved doing all the simple and stupid kid stuff like paddling a dinghy around the little cove in front of the house, going out with the local waterman on his crab boat (who also took care of the house in the off-season), catching crabs and “mud toads” in the traps, and riding our bikes all around the little town.
I haven’t been back there in years, and I understand that it’s changed quite a bit and turned into somewhat of a retirement community. So I prefer to remember it as it was through kids’ eyes.
Oh, there is saddness in the Jungle Tonight, Hank Medress has passed. For those of us from the ’60’s we remember the Lion Sleeps Tonight. John Amato has a great video up of a live performance.
Hank Medress, whose vocals with the doo wop group the Tokens helped propel their irrepressible single “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” to the top of the charts and who produced hits with other groups, has died of lung cancer. He was 68.[..]
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
We spent two weeks every summer at a beach, when I was a kid. My very relaxing. Loved sand castles. Ahhhh.
I also went to sleepaway camp every year, and have fond memories of that.
petedownunder @ 28
I realized after I hit *Publish* that this post was hemisphere-centric, and that our antipodeal Pups might feel excluded. Please tell us how you’ll spend your winter vacation!!
Evening Cassie. Congrats on the awards. Which ones did you win? I looked, but did not see them listed.
TeddySanFran @ 32
That would be Knoxville Tenn..Drove by the site last week..That must have been the final gasp of World Fairs.
Teddy, my favorite summers were the ones just described by Cassie - hanging out at the pool, earning babysitting money occasionally (my allowance was only $0.25 a week - raised to $0.35 when I was in high school), reading books in the trees out front so no one could see me, staying up reading the book I couldn’t put down. All the joys of no school for three whole months.
I gotta say, going from that to a 2 week vacation once a year was one hell of a let down in my introduction to being grown up.
(( waves to petedownunder, languishing in the antipodeal winter ))
AlexandriaCynic @ 33
Here’s her best dive yet — animated even!
I think “award-winning” has a very specific meaning *g*
Or did you mean “award-nominated,” SK?
LoudounLib @ 34
Hey, neighbor! Seems like we have more in commmon. I used to spend my summers on Carter’s Creek in Irvington, VA just around the bend from the Tides Inn. I spent more time time than I can remember in Kilmarnock–even played dupplicate bridge there. And don’t remind me of the crabs (that used to bite my toes.) Don’t they make Jimmys anymore?
This describes the award but now I have to give it away to 5 more blogs so I can post it. But I haven’t picked my 5 yet.
SnarKassandra @ 42
Where did you get that? did you make it?
Hey AlexCynic! I remember very well getting all dressed up to go to the Tides Inn. The place where we stayed was on Indian Creek. Small world!
TeddySanFran @ 43
I think it is winning. Want to check and see if I got it right?
SnarKassandra @ 42
tsk tsk (laughing) and I thought you had captured the time I did the Triple Lindy
Alfred Kelgarries @ 46
Nope. But I collect them. I have over 300.
Past, circa 1970’s: spend the summer cooped up with my mom and siblings at a camp out in the boonies of the Upper Peninsula, pestered by mosquitoes and bereft of television while bored to tears on the beach of the Gitchegumee
Future, in about 4 weeks: spend a few weeks with my kids at my folk’s camp in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula, luxuriating in the silence of the woods and watching wildlife and flora while lounging on the beach of Lake Superior.
Funny how a few decades changes one’s perspective.
One summer we went camping in the Okanagan Valley, B.C.
Woke up next to Orchards filled with the best fruit,
scrambled up the mountainside for walking Wine tours,
then staggered/rolled back down to make breakfast,
went boating on the lake … campfires under the clear Okanagan sky …
SnarKassandra @ 42
LOL! 707! LOL! 707! Just spit sparking water through my nose!!!!!
AlexandriaCynic @ 53
Try the Triple Lindy one—WITHOUT anything in your mouth, nose, or other facial orifices…
Teddy, it wasn’t a vacation but when I was a teen and attending Pleasant Hill Community Baptist Church, our BYF (baptist youth fellowship - youth group) would do retreats out in Pescadero. Walking the creek dripping with mosses and ferns, the redwoods, well it was one of my favorite places to go, even if it meant a weekend of a lot of Bible classes. There was always time to go exploring.
I think that is part of the reason I liked this place so much. Everything except the dripping mosses.
demi @ 24
Jealous.
I remember Yellowstone with extended family (and bears) as a kid. When I was in 5th grade, my dad bought and refurbished an old school bus. He had it painted……mint green with a black horizontal stripe. We’d camp in that, and I’ll never forget Toilyjane.
Dad says we were the original hippies. This was in 1962.
I remember that World’s Fair in Montreal. The US had a huge geodesic dome with the world’s tallest free-standing escalator. When you got to the top, there was a cool exhibit: a rat maze. The maze was shaped like a right triangle. The legs of the triangle were a straight shot to the food, but inside there was a huge and difficult maze. If you put in a hungry rat, it would run the legs and eat. And if you ran it over and over, it would go to the food until it wasn’t hungry. Then it would go and explore the maze. Eventually it learned the hard maze. A real life lesson, that. The Japanese exhibit featured a huge chain printer: a page at a time, banging like a cannon about twice a second. Contrast, anyone?
Then I met this beautiful woman from Calgary in line for the cool Czech movie, but I was too nervous to try to hang out with her.
Summer vacations in the ’50’s…road trip..no Interstates…New England, Canada, Upper Mid-West, Smokey Mts. The maternal grandmother usually came along..my sister recently found letters and post cards that GM had sent to her other daughters from these trips..they were fun to read.
Teddy … I have very fond memories of the Worlds Fair in NY sometime in the 60s … very exciting and my Dad’s wacky fife and drum corps got to play in the big stadium . Rather an interesting example of american culture for the visitors!
frogs, bikes, and bugs. Running around in an endorphin buzz until you collapse for the night to do-it-again.
Sounds like you had fun today TSF!
SnarKassandra @ 45
Fabulous! Congratulation on your award.
AK — I remember delivering some “Lets-all-go-to-the-lobby” Coke into the hair of the guy sitting in front of me in the theater when I saw that dive scene for the first time. Thanks for the warning. My computer thanks you, too.
I had the same thoughts on the first day of summer….. only my “Summertime” ran to the Doc Watson version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3FymSV3_5o
Vacation? What’s that? :D
Enjoy!
When I lived on the West Coast, I took my six-year-old son camping on Orcas Island in the San Juans. We went back every summer for 10 years. It is a special place. The ferry ride from Anacortes prepares you for a transition to Someplace Else. One year, a ferry hit the dock and we couldn’t get off the island. I was supposed to start a new job, and all I could say was “sorry.” I wasn’t, though. In August, the fields are golden and sunny, the water is cold, and the smell of woodsmoke mixed with salt air is something I can dredge out of my memory even now. Thanks for the thread, Teddy, and the opportunity to think about that.
TeddySanFran @ 37
Vacation? I have heard of them, must be nice to actually have one. As close as I get is a trip to Perth (on Australia’s west coast) tomorrow for a a teaching gig. Plan to meet up with Mr & Mrs Persiflage.
The Future Mrs Downunder and I have had some great trips in the past, before work became overwhelming. TFMDU likes bears so we went to Brooks Falls in AK for grizzlies then up to the frozen north of Churchill, Manitoba to see the polar bears.
In 1999 we went to Turkey to see the total solar eclipse which was way cool and the Turks are wonderful, hospitable folks.
OT but…
it sounds like there was a great conversation downstairs in siun’s thread… i presume that everyone chatting there signed the petition :)
pete, please be sure to say hello to the Persiflages for us!
Hi Betsy! Hi Cassie!!
Summertime and the livin’ IS easy. But the computin’s hard work! Who knew Windows 98 and Vista Ultimate don’t speak the same lingo. To xfr my files, I need to shell out $200 bucks for a Windows XP upgrade for the 98 or find a bootleg copy. I’ve been wranglin’ with this thing since noon today.
But boy-howdy does the YouTube smoke on the new computer! Thanks Teddy, I luvs me some Janice.
masaccio @ 57
Wasn’t the Czech pavilion where the audience got to decide which way the movie ended? It was an early step towards “interactive” but we didn’t call it that yet.
LoudounLib @ 67
Hi Loundounlib, will do! It will be fun to actually meet other FDLers.
OK. I made my choices. It’s all up on my blog now. Now I have to write to them all and tell them.
I guess one of my favorite memories is visiting my grandfather’s farm with my family. Not much of a farm, just sixty acres of flint rock and post oak that he worked with a horse team until 1968. About 1/3 was wooded, a creek ran through the back of the property, and his pond was stocked with blue gill. He taught me to fish there and the names of lots of the plants in the woods. I would spend hours wandering in the woods. We would ride his plow horse bareback. In season there were wild grapes and persimmons. Walnuts and hickory nuts in the fall.
Siun @ 59
1964-5. Mother and Daddy kept us outta school for opening day. I recall going through the Ford pavilion over and over and over until we got to ride in a Lincoln convertible. You rode in Ford cars, but there were few fancy Lincolns, which I wanted to ride in.
Also, the GM Futurama had a model of a big wide machine that ate jungle and turned out roadway. It seemed like a good idea at the time…
Also, I remember Belgian waffles from that fair.
tw3k @ 60
It was summerific.
TeddySF @ 69: I can’t remember the movie; what I do remember is that it had a lot of screens like a wall of TVs, and sometimes the movie was on one screen and sometimes on a bunch. It was way cool.
Dr. Dick = really sweet memories!
Loo Hoo, Don’t be green, dear, come with us! We’ll talk Suzannes ears off, and dunk our toes together.
Thanks for the Expo 67 link. I was 10 and it was our 1 true summer vacation. We drove from Chicago suburbs to Toronto and stayed in my great aunt’s apt. above her grocery store. I believe it was Blurr ave. We all gained 10 pounds!!
Than we went to Montreal for the world’s fair. No one really believes me when I say I saw Charles DeGaulle there. Now I have the link!!
http://www.collectionscanada.c.....405_e.html
Gosh, DrD, that sounds nice — and a great learning experience for a kid!
Speaking of bears, we went to see our new ladybears last Thursday. They are super-fun.
One summer a friend of my mother’s took us camping at the beach. I think it might have been at Carpenteria. Right on the sand. I remember we had to pee in a bucket. And I also remember the sound of the trains going by, real close.
My mom didn’t like the sand, which is why she didn’t do that.
It’s a different time. In the early 50’s, my parents didn’t give it a second thought to put me on a Greyhound Bus to ride 100 miles to spend time with the GM. If parents did that today they would be charged with neglect.
As a Navy kid, all our vacations were car vacations. We would pile into the station wagon about oh dark hundred (3am) and hit the road from sunrise till dark headed to see kin. Mom oldest of 11 - Dad was middle of 11. Had a free place to stay just about every night, going from relative to relative’s home until we hit KY, and then back again. Always stopped in KS to see dad’s kin since the KY stop was to see mom’s.
Road trips are still my preferred way to go.
Loo-
I’m serious. The site’s reservations are for eight (count them) people!
Bring the girls…
Steve, ain’t that the truth. Are the days gone now when kids would even take a plane flight unattended, except for airline staff?
anyone good with wordpress? how do i add a pic to my sidebar when the pic is on a URL?
omg LooHoo, what did people think of that bus in 1962? There wasn’t even a word for hippie yet, was there? What a great story.
All these stories are great, actually.
LoudounLib @ 67
Yes, please do. And the future Mrs. pete.
LoudounLib @ 67
Hey Pete, please give my warm regards to the Persiflages as well … and the future Mrs. Petedownunder … *g*
A park out in the hills with a creek and tadpoles (the little black ones, toad ‘poles). Also yellowjackets - we had a slide of my grandmother there, sitting with the roasting pan, and a squad of yellowjackets trying to pop the lid to get at the turkey inside. (We didn’t get it open till we went home. Last time we tried that exercise!)
The park isn’t there any more: they eminent-domained it to build a dam. There’s a lake behind it, but it isn’t the same at all.
Loo Hoo. @ 87
Will do. BTW for a cute pic check out my face book page (Pete Downunder). The calf was one TFMDU and I rescued when her mom neglected her. We don’t own the cows, they are tenants on some country property we have.
My mom also took us on a train trip to Illinois..from LA. I was so amazed at the flat land….and we stayed with my aunt in Moline. I remember her water smelled funny and tasted awful. But, I also remember the fireflies, and her water pump and the afternoon rain storms. I was 12.
petedownunder @ 90
Can ya give us a linky to your Facebook please? We gotta be your friend in order to see the pics. Here is mine (shameless facebook whoring of those who haven’t become my friend yet)
Trains! I remember taking a train from St Louis to Kansas City with my Mom once — it was that StratoCruiser train where you could sit up on the second floor, surrounded by glass. Not lots of scenery, but very exciting for a lad.
Ah, summer! Vacations were for city folk according to my farmer parents. I wonder if it had anything to do with the thought of spending a week in a car with six fighting children? The farm was on the St. Croix river in western Wisconsin, beautiful, unpolluted, and free of boaters back in the day. Lots of wonderful afternoons swimming with the sibs. Not such wonderful walks back home when the accompanying farmdogs had rolled and rolled on a ripe and thoroughly dead carp. The day they rousted out a skunk after a particularly large carp…”strong” memory.
My parents were oddities, they didn’t believe in the value or ownership of a TV. We read lots of books. Nights spent memorizing constellations and terrorizing the younger sibs with junebugs. Ah, summer!
oh Teddy … those Belgian waffles … back in the day when we ‘murkins didn’t eat no foreign food!
good memories - thank you!
Pete, I just sent you a friend request via FB
Trains! Only did two - first was the Coast Starlight from LA to SF when my dad retired from the Navy (I was in 4th grade). Slept in our seats, ate breakfast as we passed by Salinas. Loved it.
Took a fun train to Reno one year. Ohmystars, that was a fun trip. Imagine being snowed in on a train - stuck waiting for a blower train to clear the track with an open bar. We were feeling no pain by the time we got to Reno 7 hours late.
The Veep is a sick fuck. Chapter Two:
[snip]
Suzanne @ 92
Here is mine
Suzanne - that’s quite the glam shot! I have no idea how to do the friends thing on Face Book. I thought everyone could see the pic you used for ID. I could see other FDLers.
Please…please, let it be Janis Joplin!
I haven’t peeked yet. I saw the word ’summertime’ and I smelled …. !
Siun @ 95
Many foods “originated” at Worlds Fairs — the ice cream cone at St Louis, something else in Chicago, maybe the hotdog?
LoudounLib @ 84
I drove through Loudoun County a few months ago. It is now a huge tech corridor. I remember when it was in the ass end of no where. The Dulles or Chantilly airport was a political scam by a Va Congressman who’s name escapes me. The Wegman’s grocery store, next to Ferrari of Washington is amazing.
I remember going to relatives on my father’s side in northwestern Alabama. The family had had a small farm south of the town with mainly timber on it. Out back were old sharecropper cabins. There was a barn with lotsa stuff. In the parlor of the house was an old piano with newspapers sitting on it from World War One. I remember an old photo album with tintypes in it too.
Down the drive and across the highway was a cemetary. Family was laid to rest there, my great grandfather Van. His father-in-law was there too with a cast iron Iron Cross above his grave that was put there to symbolize he had fought with an Alabama regiment during the Civil War.
One thing that my brothers and I always found interesting were the fireflys at night. That was cool.
petedownunder @ 99
When you get an email saying someone wants to be your friend, click the link. Then it will tell you.
Sent ya a friend invite, petedownunder. That is a cute little guy in your arms. The glam shot was taken back in the early 90’s.
LoudounLib @ 96
Just confirmed all the folks who requested. I’m flattered. Hi TexB. How do I request to be your friends? I’m a real newbie on Face Book and have no teenagers around to explain it.
Steve, I live but two miles from Wegmans (my mecca!) and 5 miles from Dulles! And you’re right, it has changed quite a bit, and not always for the better. I grew up in Herndon, and we used to think that Loudoun was the back of beyond in those days.
Teddy, I am so looking forward to reading chapter 2. this is so going to be good - finally, the curtain is lifting and showing the OVP for what it is.