Longing for Summerland

5 days left to teach. I'm SO ready to soak up summer.
Please, God...let it be a long, meandering
one full of blazing sunshine and gentle breezes.
Please God help me create for my kids the kind of summers
I had when I was their age. They were perfect...like out of a book.

I wanna go back there to Summerland and take my boys.

When I was little before we moved to town,
my summer memories are full of my grandparent's place.
My grandpa had an old yellow wheelbarrow.
We kids would hijack it and push each other around. Funny what
you remember and associate with summer. I remember the planes
that would fly over crop dusting and my grandmother's swing, the
smell of the greenhouse and the stiff, shiny ribbon that she
and my aunts used to wrap flower pots. Bags of peat moss stacked,
grape soda out of the vending machine out front, lots of cousins,
boys playing basketball in the barn loft. Learning to ride a bike
around the back of that big white house. There was always
watermelon to eat and a pregnant aunt or two. They once told
me that accidentally eating a watermelon seed was
HOW you got pregnant. To this day,
I'm really careful not to eat seeds when I eat watermelon.
Drinks of ice cold water from a spigot with a red handle that
were so hard to raise up, you got even sweatier just
trying to get a drink.

The garden was endless. We ate tomatoes straight off the vine
like they were apples. Birdhouses were everywhere,
I never knew why until later. They eat mosquitoes.

I remember how dark it got at night...it got SO dark.
Sometimes, in the dark, we'd have to go to the garage to
get grandpa and/or the uncles and it was pitch black
between the house and the garage. PITCH BLACK. There
was ONE light pole with a big utility light BUT that didn't count
cuz there were usually bats flying around that...no safety
to be had there. I was an overly-imaginative child and
when it was my turn to go out and call them in for dinner
sometimes I thought that the devil was sitting on the fence post
waiting for me. I was sure I could see him there.
Grandpa and the garage was a safe place. Grandma and
the house was another. In between the two, in the dark, with
the devil on the fence, I RAN.

In the summer, there were always millions of fireflies.
We'd catch em' and put em' in jars. We'd have a race to see
who caught the most then we'd let them all go at once attempting
to create our own natural fireworks display...
Weenie roasts and backyard games. Hot summer sun.
Bologna and mustard sandwiches. Moments
of wild play captured between helping to shell peas or pick beans.

God, it was all SO GOOD. I'm thankful.
I'm ready to bring back Summerland.
Only 5 more days to go...