Carefree Days of Summer
It was so much fun being off from school for the summer. Those carefree days of going to the swimming pool, YMCA day camp at Possum Trot, day trips to Six Flags Over Georgia, and Stone Mountain were so much fun. The very idea that we didn’t have school the next day was liberating. We felt like we had nothing but time.
Those carefree days of summer will soon be over for students and teachers of the Rome City Schools. Yep. Rome City Schools will launch the 2019-2020 school year Friday, Aug. 2, 2019. That of course means, among other things, shopping for clothes and school supplies ... not swimsuits.
Everybody can continue enjoying all the many delightful things summer has to offer. The area farmers markets are the best! This week I had some really sweet strawberries, and watermelon. Summer just would not be summer without watermelon!
Fourth of July, that great American holiday, lands squarely in the middle of summer. That means going to the swimming pool, a backyard cookout, and fireworks. We always cook out on the Fourth of the July, and most summer weekends as well.
Vacation at the beach means swimming, snorkeling, and lying out in the sun while reading a good book. You know you can never go wrong with a good John Grisham novel ... or that “new” one by Harper Lee. Also on the agenda of a first-rate beach vacation is walking on the beach at night, eating a really good meal of fresh seafood, building sandcastles, and gathering sea shells with the grandchildren.
Going to the mountains, in the summer, often means camping, and going to the lake for picnics, canoeing, and swimming. Our family vacations were always spent camping.
The summer of 1962 we went on a great camping trip. Daddy packed the
car with all the camping gear. The back seat of our ‘56 Chevrolet Bel Air had just enough room for my brother and me to sit.
Daddy was a great outdoor cook. We’d have stew, blackberry cobbler and many delicious meals that he made in a Dutch oven. For those of you who might not know, a Dutch oven is a large, iron cooking pot. The lid has a 1-inch rim so coals can be put on it for cooking.
When daddy cooked in the Dutch oven, he first dug a hole about two feet deep, and large enough to accommodate the oven. Then, he started coals and when they were just right he put the oven on top of those coals. He started the stew, put the lid on the oven, and heaped coals on top of that, and let the stew cook.
He had two of those ovens. After the stew started cooking, he dug a separate hole for the other oven, repeated the process and made blackberry cobbler.
After supper, we cleaned up the dishes and went to an amphitheater to watch a movie. To get to the amphitheater, we walked up a hillside on an old bear trail near our camp site. The movie was about the animals and plants of the mountains.
On those vacations to the mountains, we went hiking, swimming, and canoeing. Mama was not enthused about camping. But it’s what the family was doing, so she happily went along. Ah yes, a family camping trip in the middle of summer was so much fun.
When school starts, summer is not yet over. Every weekend you can still enjoy many of the activities I’ve mentioned. But not for long. The new school year ushers in high school football season. It may as well be fall!
Native Roman Pam Walker is a paralegal, a writer, avid cyclist, history enthusiast and ardent reader of Southern fiction. Readers may email her at pamterrellwalker@gmail.com.