With a couple of weeks until the kids go back to school, I plague myself with unanswered questions. Did we do enough? Should we have rented that cabin? Should we have taken that road trip?
I find that summer is particularly fleeting and I always feel as though I have missed something. This is unneeded anxiety that makes me long for the carefree aspects of summer time youth.
With 50 cents in your pocket and a good bike, a summer's day could turn in to an eternity of its own.
A week in to the holidays some of my friends would express a desire for school to start again. A hardy gaunch pull and purple herbie would set them straight for the rest of the summer.
There was never boredom in those exploratory nine to 14 years. Days spent savouring popsicles in between epic Frisbee and tennis sessions easily tamed a summer's day.
A little "pool hopping" always cooled the gang down by sunset.
Does anyone remember 'peashooters'?
What a great and missed summer activity this was! Pick up a bag of peas and a peashooter (big straw) from your corner store for 35 cents and you were in business.
We would fashion ourselves as Pygmy warriors in the deepest and darkest Amazon forests of our own neighbourhood. Silently stalking our prey (friends) and unloading the direct ultra accurate kill shot to the temple or releasing the machine gun barrage mouthful at any cranium within a 10-foot range.
I miss being able to shoot peas out of my mouth rather than eating them. Do you think if we had corner stores they would bring this inventory back? Doubtful.
Mothers Against Peashooters, MAPS, would be formed in a second, especially here in Tsawwassen.
As we got older, the neighbourhood gang ventured farther a field. Usually we would spend time at Galiano or Hornby islands when careful calendar analysis would show that there were no parents within hundreds of miles.
These were the best of times and interests beyond peashooters began. These interests wore two pieces and the sandy and semi savvy choreographed beach volleyball matches would occasionally yield first memories of youthful progression however awkward.
Unfortunately, these times were also fraught with expectations.
Expectations from our parents for the most part.
"Michael ... you are 16-years-old and need to find work!"
I guess a paper route wasn't really work per se, and I heard what my mom was saying. In that fateful summer of 1976 a family friend had heard that they were imminently hiring for the PNE.
At Hornby, I received the bad news that me and three of my best beach buddies had been hired after submitting hastily crafted applications. I had to leave early to go to work. I felt like I had been drafted!
I still laugh with my friends about this now. I was a train conductor and even got to yell 'ALL ABOARD'.
I drove by John who was slaving at Bob's Lunch flipping burgers.
My buddy Chris was up to his armpits in tacos at some stand and my future wife was slinging Tom Thumb mini-doughnuts. I drove by them several times a day and recalled that this was the best summer ever.
Whatever you did or didn't do in your summer, just appreciate that you were there regardless.
