Summer Daze

Remember being a kid and it was summer vacation? I remember waking up (late) and eating cereal in my brothers tshirt and watching cartoons. Then we'd go outside. Outside we'd pretend we were stuntmen or explorers. We lived next to a 'gully' and my brother told me it was the land of the fairies. There would be tree trunks exposed and that is where they would live. I remember spending days looking for fares, and I secretly wanted to find one and capture it so I'd have it as a pet and it would show me all of the other places the fairies lived. We sat in the shade and would have something cool to drink, or we'd go get ice cream that was paid for by returning pop bottles at Millers. We'd climb trees, catch frogs, go fishing. We could usually find Mom under the shade of a tree on her Indian blanket reading a book, eating Do Dadds and smoking Merits.

My summers were magical. I didn't have a pool, or a sprinkler even to play in. We didn't have cable, or a VCR. We went outside and we played, and we played and played. We'd have picnics and go to the beach. Sometimes, we'd go to the beach at night and have a fire. Mom would play the guitar and we'd sing songs and look for UFO's.
It's kinda sad to think that kids don't do these things on summer vacation now. Now summer vacations are pools, and tv. Going from one air conditioned place to the other. I hope there are some kids someplace looking for fairies, and playing in the woods. I want those days back.