Where are the simple joys of maidenhood? This is the song Guinevere sang in the musical Camelot. To where did those carefree moments of sheer joy evaporate? Why is it no longer enough to run barefoot through soft summer grass or blow bubbles just to watch them float away? Why do we trade in a quest for simple pleasure in pursuit of more sophisticated and more complicated version of "happiness?" It has been said, "You can never go back," but is that really true? Can you unlearn the rules, even if only for a few stolen moments of abandon? Can you shake off the cloak of adulthood and thumb your nose at assumptions, snooty pretense and social constraints? I think you can.
I grew up in the south and spent my summers riding my bike all over town, going to the library and getting lost in magical worlds, solving mysteries with Nancy Drew and healing the sick with Clara Barton. I played school with my unwilling younger sister and our dolls (who were, by the way, much better students than my poor little sister who didn't WANT to play school!). I loved the swing set, swinging so high I made the legs of the swing set stomp up and down like a lumbering giant (but only when my Grandma wasn't looking because she didn't allow us to swing that high for safety's sake). When the noon sun was high overhead and it was unbearably hot, we'd take that same swing set, throw my Granny's quilts over the top and create a cool tent where we'd bring our afternoon treat of 1/2 of a banana popsicle and our coloring books and lie on our stomachs and discuss the merits of outlining the picture before you color it in versus the circular coloring motion versus using the wrong colors just because a purple kitten would look so funny.
We usually underwent the ritual, sometime near the end of June, of going to Kmart to pick out a swimming pool for the back yard. We'd longingly look at the big deep pools, but my very practical Grandma would inevitably steer us in the direction of the smallest round blue plastic wading pools with goofy turtles wearing snorkel gear printed into the plastic. We'd bring the pool home, find a place that was fairly level and we'd fill the pool with the allotted amount of water. Which was never enough. My grandma was terrified of 2 things: 1. Having a huge water bill and 2. Her granddaughters drowning in 1/2 inch of water in the back yard. We tried everything....Including sneaking the hose back out after she went in to watch All My Children (that sacred hour between 1 and 2pm). Somehow, she ALWAYS knew. She'd slip into a back bedroom, and yell out the window, "Girls! Are you trying to put more water in that swimming pool?" We tried, upon occasion to fake her off, "Oh no, Mamaw! (because that's what we call our Grandmas in the south) "We're Not!" trying our pitiful best to look earnest. She would never buy it, and would make us show her the end of the hose, which, of course would have running water coming out of the end, and then we knew......Precisely at 2pm when the TV was turned off, we'd get our legs switched for lying.
The worst thing about getting your legs switched was having to go and cut your own switch. My granny was a true believer in that part of the punishment, giving us time to think about it, dread it and stew over it. It was a no-win situation. You'd go down to the little trees and bushes at the back of the house and try to find your fate. You didn't want to chose a big, thick switch , for obvious reasons. But also, You didn't want a tiny,flimsy one because that would just make my Grandma more angry and that meant more licks.....And if you spent too long searching for "just the right one" well, that made her impatient and more angry too. Oh, the agony of picking your own switch! Then she'd grab you by one hand and switch the back of your legs with her other hand. We'd do the highstep while we went around and around her in a crazy circle crying "Oh Mamaw, Oh!Oh!" until she was satisfied we'd been sufficiently switched. We learned quickly not to try to shield our legs with our free hand! Else your hand got switched as well and that was not good. In retrospect, the switching didn't really hurt that much and we probably wore my poor Granny plum out. But it was so humiliating to have to pick your own switch and then submit to the consequences. My Granny was a very merciful woman, and usually a "switchin" meant 2 or 3 licks at most....About as bad as when she "dusted our britches" with her hand when there was no available switch-trees. I was a quick learner and didn't get that many switchings or britches-dustings; I was a pretty well-behaved kid. My sister didn't share my insight or temperament and got MANY more switchings than I did.
In the evenings, after supper and when the sun was going down, we'd always sit outside in the yard. Either in those metal-frame folding chairs with the canvas woven slings or in the porch swing (which was put on the swing set in lieu of our swing-seats). We'd sit and drink iced water or tea, wield fly-swatters and just talk and watch the cars go by. Neighbors would inevitably come over with their chairs and we'd just sit there until late. Well, the adults sat there. The kids would get antsy. Mamaw would make home-made bubbles for us out of dish-soap and we'd blow bubbles for what seemed like hours! When it was dark enough for the lightening bugs, we'd go get a quart mason jar, poke holes in the lid with Mamaw's ice pick, fill the jar with a little grass and maybe a stick and then, we'd catch as many glowing lightening bugs as we could. We'd keep them in the jar and use them as a night light, pretending they were our own magical tiny Tinkerbells. After we'd caught enough lightening bugs to keep our rooms lit-up for the night, we'd change over to playing Freeze-tag, Swinging Statues, 1-2-3 Redlight, Mother May I, Red Rover and a game we made up with some neighborhood kids called, "Are We Mice or Are We Men?" which was really like Truth or Dare, only we "made it up." There were nights where we played with our hula-hoops, our lemon-twists, or jax and sometimes, we'd just sit and listen to the grown-ups talk.
Another great thing about summertime when we were growing up was vacation Bible School. Bible school was a magical week....Where the church bus would pick us up before 8am and we'd ride over to the church, line up and march into the church by age groups and sing songs and then we'd go to our classes. There were many special things about Bible School, one being that we got to do crafts. Macrame was my favorite! We'd learn verses and I was really good at memorizing! We'd have snack time, which was....You guessed it! 1/2 of a popsicle! Bible school was so much fun! And a great escape from the lonely tedium of summer for us kids, and in retrospect, quiet mornings for my Grandparents! I still remember the songs and verses I learned in Bible School. Those were very happy memories!
Now that I'm all grown up, I look at summer as a long, hot ordeal. I don't really take the time to feel the sun warm my skin, I worry about sunburn. I don't savor those long hot evenings by sitting outside with family and friends and catching lightening bugs, we're much more likely to sit in the air-conditioned house and watch TV and not interact with anyone until a commercial. Now, I don't savor that 1/2 popsicle, I fret over calories and nutritional value. I don't run barefoot in the grass, I worry about pedicures and dry skin. I don't play freeze-tag or blow bubbles with wonder or swing as high as I can to feel like I'm flying. I really need to stop and review my actions and decisions....Do my current actions really make me happy? Will I have fond memories of sitting in front of a TV all summer? Or should I kick off my shoes, kick up my heels, chase lightening bugs and share a popsicle with my kids? Oh, where are those simple joys of maidenhood?
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