What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

I see the kids and their moms bustling around buying school supplies and it reminds me of waaay back when I went to school. Every year our small town school teacher would have us write an essay " What I Did On My Summer Vacation". I always hated that because we never went on a vacation. I did the same thing summer after summer but I didn't know the meaning of the word boring. We knocked flies in the street in front of the house but I don't remember anyone ever breaking a window. We played rock school across the side street on the high steps of the Methodist church. We walked up the street to an abandoned oil well where we had a picnic of onion, a pint of beans, and whatever else was in the fridge. We played annie over at the high roofed house catty cornered across the street from our's. Some days it was hopscotch on the neighbor's sidewalk because we didn't have one. Then there were days we went for long walks to the Medina river at the crossin' or to the old ruins of Benton City school. There was always mail call twice a day where we waited with other people for the mail to be put into the boxes at the local post office. Time to catch up on all the news (town gossip). Some nights we could skate on the cement slab behind Fatty Barrera's house on our metal skates with the skate key on a string around out neck. The slab was used for Mexican holidays but there were plenty of summer nights for our use and we could buy a taco and Big Red soda from him. The pickle factory was right across the street. My friend's mom worked there and would give us a big dill pickle if the owner wasn't around. We might lift the tin covering the big kegs of pickles sitting outside just to peek inside. Health department, never heard of it. A movie on Saturday night and pop corn with Pop Ellis yelling poppity poppity pop corn when it was ready. Not a movie theatre, just the school auditorium used as such. Some days we could get in a game or two of mother may i or hide and seek before supper. There was always playing house and pretending to can mesquite beans or china berries which reeked with a horrible odor when opened several days later. There was Bible school and sunday school, visiting with Teacher Miller on what she called her veranda. Sunday afternoons we could sit on a bench in front of the barber shop and wave at strangers. Times were safe, people were neighborly. Everyone knew your business, but you knew their's too. If something happened everyone was there to help. So much to do in the summer and so little time to do it before school started again and that dreadful essay "What I Did On My Summer Vacation".