Warm Summer Days

Jay & Larry Cir 1953

I'm putting this picture up because it just brings back so many happy memories of long hot summer days in our yard and it brings back pleasant memories of my brother who left us several years ago.

It seems to me that my brother and I spent just about every waking hour on West 12th Street out in the yard.  (That might have been a result of mama saying to us "go outside and do something and get out from under my feet".  That was a common refrain as I recollect.)

Those warm summer days had their own rhythm to them and that rhythm seemed to be so very slow.  It was often filled with long hours of chasing dragonflies with nets in the hot sun where they seemed to just hover until you wanted to catch them.  Or lying in the shade of the porch peeking between the edge of the grass and the edge of the concrete porch searching for rollie pollie's.  (For those who might be interested, the proper name for these fascinating little characters is actually pill bugs.)  

Sometimes we would get lucky in our adventures and our dad or a neighbor would leave something out that would capture our attention and it would be an entire afternoon filled with excitement.  One such day was when someone, I have no idea who, left an old wooden sawhorse and some lumber laying out.  My brother and I immediately saw the possibilities.  That old sawhorse and lumber ended up as one of the best fighter planes ever built.  It had a pilots seat and gunners seat and a moving propeller with guns mounted on the wings.  We built and flew that fighter all afternoon.  That was one of those days when daddy had to whistle for us to get in the house for dinner.  You see, on a regular day mama would just call us in for dinner but when we were deep in one of our adventures it generally took daddy to whistle for us to come in and wash up for dinner.

So that's a short installment for today.