BY KYLE LOVERN
Summertime was special back in the 1960s and early 70s. Summer meant school was out, which was an exciting time for most of us.
It meant getting to sleep a little later and not having to wake to rush to prepare for school.
We could not list all of the technology the young people today have at their disposal like video games, computers, cell phones and 200-plus channels on cable TV. In the 60s you were lucky to have a transistor radio and a record player to play your 45-RPM records. For me, picking up the local AM station to listen to the latest music was great fun and made me want to become a disc jockey (DJ). This was a dream I later fulfilled in life. I may be prejudiced, but I think the music of the 60s and 70s is some of the best ever made. Many of my friends and I would also tune in to listen to the Cincinnati Reds baseball games.
As far as a telephone, most of the phones were attached to the wall, if you were lucky enough to even have one in your home. Ours was yellow and in the kitchen. It had a long cord you could stretch to another room or a closet for a little privacy. There were no cordless phones or caller ID, so when it rang you never knew who might be on the other end. But there were no telemarketers back in those days, so if it rang, it was likely someone you knew, like a friend or family member. It’s funny how I can still remember my old home landline number and a couple of my best friends’ phone numbers from that time, but I can’t remember my cellphone number today.
In the 60s, your summer would include playing outside. What that really meant was you would create your own fun. Games like hide and seek and tag were popular. If you were lucky enough, you might even get to play a little after dark, as long as it was in your yard or a neighbor’s yard.
After dark, we caught lightning bugs and put them in a jar. We would put grass in the jar, thinking that would give them something to eat. It was like having a lantern. We cut holes in the lids to give them air, but for some reason, the next morning when you saw them on the porch they had died. So we would do it all over again the next night.
Of course, it was extremely hot and hardly anyone had air conditioning back in those days. You were lucky to have a window fan or a couple of floor fans to try to catch a little breeze on those sticky, humid days in July and August. But we were used to it. We’ve become spoiled nowadays that if the AC goes out or there is a power outage, we wonder how we will survive.
We played sandlot baseball growing up, and those were some of the best times ever. Some of my friends and I played in a wide spot in Nolan near the old Thompson Mercantile and post office building. Or we would play at the local schoolyard.
We made friendships that will never be forgotten. We also played in an organized softball league in the Mingo-Pike Boy Scout League. Nolan always had competitive teams and won the championship many times. It was a thrill to play road games. We would load up in the back of a pickup truck or a couple of cars and travel to various communities to play. (More about this in a future column.)
If you were fortunate enough to have a bicycle, you spent many hours riding around the neighborhood. With its high-rise handlebars, the “banana bike” looked like a chopper motorcycle, which instantly made it the coolest ride in town. We rode up and down the paved “backway” at Nolan. We put miles on those bikes. Sometimes we would put a balloon on the spokes or a baseball card to make a noise that, in our imagination, sounded like a motorcycle.
We drank a lot of Kool-Aid or water right out of the water hose or outdoor spigot to quench our thirst. We would take a short break to go home to eat a baloney or peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Or maybe you would eat some leftovers from the night before.
Sometimes we would sneak to the river to swim. We also spent many hours fishing with a cane pole on the banks, hoping to catch a catfish or carp. We had to dig up worms for our bait. I’m not sure many kids would do that these days.
The days were longer, and of course, it didn’t get dark until after 9 p. m. When the moon was full, it gave us a little extra light to spend the last few minutes of play before our parents made us come in for the night and get ready for bed.
There were a lot of historical events in this era. The Civil Rights Movement and assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King and the riots in the big cities that followed. There was the Vietnam War and the space race when the United States beat Russia to be the first to land on the moon.
The culture was different and it was a simpler time, but we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Summertime was so much more innocent back in the 60s and 70s, but we had loads of fun. Those are precious memories we’re sure many of you have too.
(Kyle Lovern is a retired journalist from the Tug Valley. He is still working as a freelance writer and columnist.)