Summertime and the living is …
It无毛视频檚 summer! You knew that (I hope).
Summer has always been my favorite part of the year.
Why? Because it无毛视频檚 not winter.
Teachers, school books, and overcoats were off the agenda in summer. They were replaced by bikes and skinned knees and overheated, dawn-to-dusk pursuits of adventure.
(Heck! As I write this, I无毛视频檓 getting so inspired, I无毛视频檓 thinking about climbing a tree.)
In my youth (sometime in the last century), I longed for the carefree (or as my parents would say 无毛视频渃areless无毛视频�) days of June, July, and August.
We thrived without computer screens or cellphones. If you wanted to talk to somebody, you had to go and knock on their door.
There was always something exhilarating about awakening on a sunny summer day and thinking you might be able to ride your bike to the end of the earth 无毛视频� then return before dinner.
That was the exuberance of youth only bounded by the reality of mistakenly thinking the end of the earth was just beyond South Union.
Don无毛视频檛 get me wrong. There were a few summer difficulties you had to learn to overcome in the 1950s, 无毛视频�60s, and 无毛视频�70s 无毛视频� water balloons in the hands of older kids.
I used to live in great fear of those things 无毛视频� because I have an older brother (Marlin) with lots of friends, who had little respect for my older brother无毛视频檚 little brother 无毛视频� me.
SPLAT!
The occasional flight to avoid water balloons didn无毛视频檛 dampen my love of summer.
There无毛视频檇 be morning, afternoon and evening shifts on East End Playground.
During the school year, my mother would have a tough time trying to wake me in the morning. On many summer days, I was up before her, heading toward my first shift on the playground. We had tetherball, knock-hockey, four-square, swings, ping-pong, dodgeball, volleyball, crafts (I made something once), jacks, movie nights, occasional dances, and something they called basketball on East End Playground.
While I was fearful of water balloons in general, on the playground they devised a fine use for water to help fight the blistering summer heat.
There were no swimming pools in the East End of Uniontown. So, the playground director, Mrs. Nancy Jenkins, and her assistant, Miss Patty Thomas, would simply get out a hose and spray all of the kids until they erupted into nonstop fits of laughter.
I don无毛视频檛 think I ever stopped playing something up there on the playground.
Is it me, or when you think about your adolescent years, do you ever remember being exhausted, or at a loss for something to do? I don无毛视频檛.
There were a few days when I didn无毛视频檛 go to East End Playground. That无毛视频檚 when my parents loaded up the car, and we visited our relatives in other towns. I was, sadly, absent from the playground on those days.
Is it 无毛视频淥lly, Olly, oxen free,无毛视频� or 无毛视频渁lly, ally, in free无毛视频�? I无毛视频檓 a bit perplexed because the internet won无毛视频檛 give me a definitive answer to that question.
Ah, the joys of playing hide-and-seek, until your parents would come searching for you because you knew you were supposed to be home by the time the streetlights came on (one of the many embarrassing details of my youth).
There无毛视频檇 always be an occasion when we could all fool somebody who was 无毛视频渋t无毛视频� to fall for our hide-and-seek prank.
Everybody would leave the base as if they were going to find a hiding place. Except they wouldn无毛视频檛 hide. They无毛视频檇 go home for the night, leaving the poor soul to search endlessly for people he (or she) would never find. There might be 70-year-olds still searching.
Summer.
The sounds of birds chirping, and crickets, er, cricketing 无毛视频� and children playing.
Those are the days of my youth I remember so well (even if I embellish them a bit).
But now, to the crux of this: When I was a child, I never heard a gunshot or knew of a child felled by it.
Where are we? How did we get here?
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.