Grandkids? summers, a whole lot different
Our grandkids, twins Haley and Trevor, 7, Savannah, 11, were uncertain (as expected) on how they are going to spend this summer’s days.
I didn’t expect them to come up with a list of day-filling activities. After all, they have few responsibilities, fewer chores and have hardly a clue of what kind of an answer to give to my question.
But, I can see them with their iPods, Game Boys, DVDs, things with wheels, computer time fillers and moping.
So, as I wondered how they would spend their summers out of school, I thought of how they compared to mine.
Our 7-thru-11 years were on farms. Oh, Dad attempted some farming, but he had a full-time job on the Grand Trunk Railroad in the 1930s. Those were major Depression years, and thankfully Dad had a paying job.
But, it seems like we lived like he didn’t. With the help of my sister Barbara, here’s how we spent summers:
We’d make burr baskets. Taking these bristly things, which I hardly ever see today, and shaping them like a bowl. Mom and Dad always had big gardens, which needed hoeing. Especially the potatoes. Enough potatoes had to be planted to be stored in the cellar (there were no lower ‘levels? in those days) over winter, which by spring had numerous sprouts.
Barb said we played in a sandbox behind the house which had no sand.
We didn’t have horses, but we had horse stables. We would get switches and climb on the separating half-walls and pretend we were cowboys on horseback chasing Indians. Today, the ACLU would probably sue my folks, remove us from their home and give Mom and Dad 5-to-10 in Jackson prison.
The farm had a barn with two mows (the part of a barn where hay or straw is stored). A rope huing from the middle of the mows and we would try to swing from one mow to the other. Sometimes we made it.
Our 4-and 6-year-older brothers would convince us to find chicken eggs not in the chicken coop, so they could take them to the free show in Bancroft and sell them.
Another thing we did with complete Mother approval, was man a vegetable stand on M-78 selling summer squash. I don’t remember ever having any motorist stop.
One of the activities I really enjoyed was asking gas station operators for used oil for my brother Dair’s car so he could take us to town. That was a major treat.
One of my chores was carrying pails of water from our windmill-operated well to the house to fill the reservoir on the coal burning kitchen range. By the second pail the trip grew several miles.
We always had dogs and cats. We’d play with the dogs, and scare the cats. Cats are/were loners. I’m told they are great comfort to many, but ours were never house cats.They were mousers.
My dad was a big man, 6-foot-3 and built for work. Our house had a cistern for rainwater. One day, I crawled through one of those small basement windows and fell into the cistern.
Dad heard me yell and somehow got himself through that little window to save my life. In later years he sometimes acted like he regretted that act of heroism.
Brother Dair also saved me from drowning once. We were swimming in the Shiawassee River in Newburg, west of Durand, and I got in too-deep water.
He at least never regretted saving me, but he didn’t brag about it either.
So, as they always did, summers gave way to fall, and school bells again rang out over the country-side loud and clear. I never complained about school starting or summer vaction ending.
Never.
I liked school — mostly, I guess, because my time was better planned, and I didn’t have an iPod.