Summers Gone By

Lastnight, I was at the home of U.S. Congressman Todd Akin for an Old-Fashioned Independence Day Celebration. While sitting there, as the sun began to set and the sky darkened, a flash of light lit up in front of my eyes. Aha! Lightning bug. I saw several more fly by and I began to think back to my youth. Summer after summer, Haley & I would go to Alabama to stay with our grandparents. I remember many a nights that we would take a jar outside & spend forever catching fireflies. I'll even go ahead & admit that we did kill a few just for the fascination of seeing the neon light as we smeared them with our shoes. Yeah, I know....so horrible were we. One of my favorite things about summer was going to bed at night with my bedroom window open falling asleep to the sound of fireflies & Junebugs being fried by the bugzapper. I know, I'm sounding more and more morbid with every word I say. Truly, I thought the sound of those little critters sizzling was a thrill. I remember our family traveling to Vandalia, MO (extremely small-population less than 2,000) & my cousins and I walking through the cornfields snipe hunting. As we did so, we struggled to find our way out. Haley & I spent the majority of our childhood at 12 Asherton Drive in Saint Peters, phone #: 928-0489. One doesn't forget that kind of thing. The subdivision in which we lived was humongous. We would ride our bikes up and down the streets day after day. If we weren't out roaming the neighborhood, we were rollerskating in our garage pretending to be running our own beauty pageants. One summer, while my sister & I were in Alabama, we returned home to find that our parents (with the help of our aunts, uncles, etc.) had built us a playhouse in our backyard. This was no average playhouse. The house itself was built of wood, about 8'x 12' with windows, a skylight complete with a carpeted rug, a chalkboard, school desk, kitchen set, etc. We ran an electric cord out to the house so that we could have lights at night. For hours, Haley & I would play school...always fighting over who was going to be the teacher. Just as we bickered over that, we too argued over who would be the cashier when we played store. Yes, we had a play cash register in our house as well. These are just a few of my memories. Those were special days....days that at times, seem so long ago while at other times, I recall them as though it was just yesterday.