It’s June and
for kids, this is THE most wonderful time of the year with somewhere around two or three months off. It’s
that time where kids feel that they can do whatever they want while working on their tans, playing sports, hanging out at
the mall, you name it.
It’s also that
time of year when, as I see kids of all ages enjoying their temporary freedom from school, I smile as my mind goes back in
time, while everything in view begins to swirl as I hear those wind chime thingies – just like those dream sequences
on TV shows.
The earliest memories
of summer freedom are as a kid in Huntsville, Alabama. My parents bought me one of the small, aluminum
sided, vinyl liner swimming pools (some assembly required). I didn’t know how to swim and neither
did my mom. However, she taught me how to, a) get over my fear of water and, b) how to swim like a fish.
The fear over water thing was done by “baptizing”
me in the pool. Now, for some of you, you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
For others of you from more liturgical faith practices, you’re thinking that Mom sprinkled me with water.
No, baptism within many Evangelical churches – especially
in the Deep South, required dunking the baptized completely under water. That’s what mom did to get
me over my fear of going under water. The rest was easy.
Over the years, summers took on different meanings and represented different
things. After my family moved out of the Deep South and to the Arizona desert, summers meant 115 degree heat, savage sun tans
(you wouldn’t know that by looking at me now) and family vacations back to Tennessee to see family. Oh yeah, there was
also the exciting sounds of ice cream trucks cruising the neighborhood streets. Are there even such things
as ice cream trucks anymore?
Ultimately,
after graduating from high school, I faced the summer with decisions to make. Such minor decisions like:
what to do with my life and, if college was going to be a part of it, which college. For about eight years
after that, it was always just another time of year within which to work and survive. After our daughter
was born, we began to see what the excitement of summer was all about again.
Now that our baby is in her mid twenties, I’ve kind of settled back into
the “grown-up” view of summer. That is, I am until I see kids walking the streets, laughing,
playing sports, and riding their bikes, all without a care in the world.
I believe that this summer, I’ll do things just a little different. I
need to grab the hand of my lovely first (and only) wife and walk outside in our beautiful neighborhood. Notice trees that
I haven’t noticed before. Maybe even meet a neighbor or two that we haven’t met yet.
Then again, if we’re real lucky, maybe an ice cream
truck will be patroling the neighborhood.
