First Day of Summer Vacation
Can I go barefoot, Mama?
My only worry on this happy day was stickers, sandspurs.
There might be a few in the front yard and maybe some in the back yard, up the hill on the bank close to the house (not way up back, nothing grew in the shade there but cool, damp black dirt), but I knew where they were, and it was my job to keep them pulled up. So, cautious, but no shoes 'til the Tuesday after labor Day, three blessed months away.
The first day of summer vacation was the only day of the year that topped the first day of Christmas vacation for sheer bliss.
Don’t walk under or too close to the chinkapin trees, of course, the burrs were vicious.
Except for rainy days, summers were outside, there being no air conditioning except at the Ritz Theatre, and in time JCPenney department store, on Harrison Avenue downtown.
“It’s 20 degrees cooler inside,” said the sign out front, but who had eleven cents to go to the picture show more than once a month or so. JCPenney was exciting to go in and watch, because they had that cable system with the little cups for scooting your money from the clerk station to the cashier on the second floor; and waiting for your change and receipt to come scooting back.
So, summer would be spent playing outside with the other kids in the neighborhood, and running and playing in the woods behind our house. Both in the dense woods and along the well-worn paths that seemed to have been there for centuries. Only woods. Linda Avenue and Allen Avenue behind us, only dirt roads, little more than two sandy ruts; and it would be years before trees were felled and houses were built and alleys were cut.
We might sing “Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor” along with our devotional, pledge of allegiance and prayer each morning during the school year. But a child in summer was not mindful that there was a war going on, only of total freedom and peace.
The word “may” was not in the vocabulary of any self-respecting boy. “Can I go barefoot, Mama?” only had to be asked once each year.
TW+