Memories of Summers Pasts

 

 

 

I am sure everyone remembers the best, the worst and ugly of summer’s pasts. The best ones are lodged in our minds the most I am sure along with the worst ones too. The ugly ones could be right up there too though I don’t remember any of them? They go right in with the bad ones. Hopefully everyone had few bad summers. I know I certainly did not.

Like many memories I have the summer ones are garbled here and there. I am not sure whether it was my first year at YMCA camp or not however one I am sure everyone there remembers more than I do. I was ten years old and one morning I was screaming fire. All the kids and counselors throughout the camp woke up and got out to their dismay that my screaming fire was a false alarm. I have to say that I was not very popular that day. I don’t remember it happening however I was told over and over again so I know it did happen. Something good to laugh about now; going to camp that year was fun other than the fire episode. I remember being able to learn archery and making different items. The challenge though at camp had to do with swimming for a distance with a boat behind me just in case something happened. If you made the full distance you were able to take a boat out along with all the privileges of swimming. I am not sure whether I passed the first time or not however I did make it all the way once. Nothing worse would have happened if I could not take a boat out or go swimming. It would have been a disappointing camp for sure. When I was eleven I went to camp again with the same good times.

At twelve years old was the greatest summer of all. In fact I am sure few families ever did this before or after our family. We took off the day after school was let off for the summer and did not return until two weeks before school started up again. Actually we would have been away for even a little longer however I had to be back to get an operation under my right arm because of the burn I had when I was four years old.

Our trip involved having a tent trailer. Our parents said we could take this trip if my brothers and I promised to take it up and down every single day. My older brother Dick who was thirteen and taller than either my younger brother Jack or myself had to do the high part of the job; we had no problem doing that because the benefit of the trip outweighed putting up the tent.

Our trip we went from Gig Harbor, Washington up into British Columbia and we travelled east all the way through Canada. We visited every province in Canada and we visited several states in eastern United States. We saw Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts for the first time. Though I did not see a game I was able to see Fenway Park in Boston.

Throughout the trip we had some other members of the family join us like my sister Barb who met up with us in Montreal. We met our Aunt Judy for the first time in Montreal too. I believe we spent about two weeks in Montreal since they had a World’s Fair. Mostly I remembered about the fair was standing in line for hours. At least my brothers and I were able to run around some since we could not stand still for very long. Our grandmother met up with us in Nova Scotia. She was living in British Columbia however flied to Nova Scotia to meet up with us. She was born and grew up in Nova Scotia so we met a couple of her sisters as well. The only time we met them since they were elderly and in their 90s. We met some second cousins in New Brunswick as well. They were a little bit younger than us. We spent several days there too. This was before going onto eastern United States.

Of course we had other good summers but that summer being twelve was the best of all. I hope this will recall for you all the summers you experienced as a child and your families.