What did summer vacation mean to you?

We were so active as kids during the summer that I just remember being on the go all the time, barely a moment to grab a snack or a sandwich or something for a meal… Mine mostly revolved around sailing, boat repair, boat maintenance, racing, goofing, all of it. I barely saw my parents (which I think was a relief to them)...

Wow. Well, for one thing it was going to last forever. I would try to force myself to sleep until 9:00. Mom always made pancakes for breakfast. Then I went outside and had Great Adventures until lunch. After lunch I went out side again and had Great Adventures until dinner. After I got a little older, I went outside after dinner and had Great Adventures That My Parents Would Not Have Approved Of.

For some reason, standing under the street light after dark with the neighborhood kids comes to mind.

Boredom. My friends went off to camp and I entertained myself. I read a lot and waited for school to start. When I got to high school I got summer jobs. That was better.

No stress from bullies, and being able to sleep late every day.

No school! Sleeping late, swimming, and when I was very young a few weeks in the catskills or on Cape Cod.

We got to play all day long with all the kids in the neighborhood. We didn’t go home til our mom yelled for us to come in for dinner, then we were right back out until the street lights came on. It was great and seemed to last forever. We invented new games to play, all the kids played together and we all were from the same economic background, so no one had more or less than the other. If one did, no one noticed.
All the moms had popcicles in the freezer and passed them out freely. We went to the swimming pool on the weekends and spent the whole day there.

Running around under the sprinklers in nothing but underoos. Ah, the days before pedo-fear.

Living with my grandparents out of state for 3 mos. It’s what I’d look forward to the other 9 mos. of the year. My grandpa would drive from his state to ours, stay a week and then take me back home with him, we’d make a week long road trip out of it, ritualistically stopping at the same places, usually family haunts and retelling family stories as we went.

There was a lot of driving into mountains to go fishing, exploring for treasures on abandoned farms/houses, visiting elderly relatives, all the comic books I could read, all the candy I could discover in 7–11 stores, all the different flavored sodas on the market and all the foods I was curious about not allowed in my own vegetarian household.

My grandparents taught me socialize, it was called visiting people or going to town. They taught me to work, how to count money, how to keep a savings, what bills looked like and who you pay them to, how to sew, cook, clean, swim, fish, drive, shoot, throw knives and lots of history of America stuff- as they’d known it. They were the best days of my young life.

I did not put on a pair of shoes until school started again.

As a kid, playing outside for endless hours. Yeah, there was a time when I played outside.
Until I got video games, then vacation meant playing em for hours on end. Still went outside though, my dad would chase me away from the TV sometimes haha.

Not having to go to school and face the bullies. I spent all my summers messing about on a farm and riding horses.

When I was growing up, my father did what is now called house flipping. He would buy a pre-war house, add a second bathroom and up-date the kitchen, then sell it for a nice profit.

We always moved in in September, when school started, and then move out at the end of school and spend the summer in a Motel, with a pool. I loved it, except we went to a different school nearly every year.

As a child, I did not realize what a burden it was on my Mom. She once told me she hated “living out of a suitcase”, but I wasn’t aware of it.

Is that what your Dad did for a living @YARNLADY?

@Dutchess_III No, my dad worked at a factory job 40 hours a week and remodeled houses for a hobby.

Oh man. Your poor mom! You know….I read The Little House on the Prairie series over and over as a kid. The things that Laura wrote about were SO COOL. Then I picked the books up again when I was in my 30’s….and saw a completely different story. That poor mother!