Summers and Fourth of July of youth

BY KYLE LOVERN

The Fourth of July holiday was always a fun time when I was growing up. My sister Karen and I were recently reminiscing about those lazy (and recently hazy) hot days of summer.

School had been out for over a month, which was a great thing as far as I was concerned. I was able to do some of my favorite things in the summer. Play baseball, go swimming, fish, ride bicycles and play outside.

We didn’t have video games. We had no idea there would ever be an internet and a personal home computer or laptop. Who would have thought we would have cable TV with hundreds of channels to pick from?

One fun thing we can recall is that we got to drink a lot of pop and eat a lot of watermelon. We loved that sweet, red and juicy delicacy. That was a special treat back in the 1960s. We cherished both because they were a luxury during that era.

We didn’t get soda pop every day and watermelon was just for special occasions like the Fourth of July and maybe a family picnic. We loved Nehi. My favorite was strawberry and Karen’s was grape. Orange and root beer weren’t bad either!

We also got ice cream; usually Neapolitan, to get chocolate, strawberry or vanilla – or a taste of all three!

Even though times were tough, Dad always seemed to come up with these special treats on the Fourth of July.

Mom always made things like her fresh homemade potato salad, tasty half-runner green beans and mom’s great fried chicken made in an iron skillet. There was fresh, sweet yellow corn on the cob, red ripe tomato slices out of the garden, cucumber slices and soaked in sweet vinegar. Sometimes we had hot dogs with homemade chili. Both my sister and I still make that great chili. My wife and I just had some that I had frozen from the last batch that I cooked.

When we were very young, we played the usual games that kids participated in back then with the neighborhood kids or visiting relatives. Games like hide and seek and tag were popular.

In the evening, we caught lightning bugs and would put them in an empty jelly jar, punching holes in the lid to give them air. We thought we had a beautiful, sparkling lantern. It seemed as though there were hundreds of fireflies back then. I don’t see as many these days and it sort of makes me sad.

We never had air conditioning, but we had screen windows and would lie facing toward the outside, hoping to catch a breeze on those hot summer nights. My sister and I liked to star gaze too.

Part of our “entertainment” was a couple of neighbors who liked to partake in the drinks that made them happy. We would watch, giggle and snicker and one person in particular would sit on his porch swing and talk to himself. He really seemed to be having a long, intelligent conversation with some invisible person. We thought it was so funny and would laugh and laugh from a distance.

As my sister got older and moved on – I, too, got older and some of my interests changed.

I really started enjoying music in the early 1970s, my early teen years. I had a transistor radio that I could pick up my favorite stations. We had a cinder block rock wall on one side of our house, and I liked to plant myself there and hope the DJ would play one of my favorite songs. I dreamed of one day becoming a disc jockey. I was blessed to eventually fulfill that dream a few years later.

On the headboard of my bed was a shelf where I had an electric radio. I could listen to music or the Cincinnati Reds games as I lay in bed. I would often wake up the next morning to static as the station I had been listening to signed off while I drifted off to sleep.

Or course it was great to sleep in during the summer months and not have to worry about getting up early for school.

I can recall July 4, 1976. I had already graduated and was attending the local community college while working part-time and playing softball in the local league in Williamson. But that holiday was extra special for our country. It was the bicentennial, and it indeed had an extra special feel about it that year. Many special things were happening across the country and on television.

We didn’t have all of the local fireworks shows as they do now in most of our small municipalities. So we would shoot off our own firecrackers, Roman candles, bottle rockets and other fireworks.

It’s funny how you can remember those certain times and years that were special. Those innocent times and fond memories will always be with me.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)

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