Whiling away the summer

At Week’s End

What, a young friend asked, did you do as a kid on hot summer days without televisions, computers and other gadgets?

The answer was easy: I spent most of my time outdoors, where even a slight breeze was more refreshing than being cooped up in a house without air-conditioning.

We had a two-car garage — adequate if you had a Model A or a narrow 1949 Ford, my folks’ first car — usually referred to as “the barn.” Full-dimension two-by-fours overlaid with one-inch boards created a loft, reached only by propping up a ladder. I occasionally ventured up, although in the heat of summer it was a challenge.

I’d spend time in the barn, though, tinkering and making such things as toy guns that shot rubber bands cut from innertubes. Often, I’d settle back on a stack of gunny sacks and listen to our resident wood bee as it bored away. The incessant drone was distinctive. I haven’t heard one in years, but I’d recognize the sound in a flash.

If water was running in the ditch out front, I’d spend hours there building a low dam so I could sail little boats I made from scraps of wood. Sometimes I’d add a sail, more for effect than power.

It was also a good place come Fourth of July to explode depth charges from Bulldogs or Cherry Bombs by wrapping them in mud.

Hunting crawdads was a favorite pastime. Now and then we’d find a momma with a clutch of tiny offspring folded under her tale.

I don’t think kids play in ditches as much anymore.

We had a garden that covered a full lot — hand-spaded by my dad and granddad, and tended in the same manner — that provided another place for my imagination to wander.

Turtle doves would waddle between the rows looking for a snack. I enjoyed seeing how close I could get by sneaking up behind vines that had some height. I got close enough a few times to nearly grab one of the birds. Our cat was more successful.

We had a pen of chickens, sometimes as many as 40 or 50, and I seemed determined to protect the grain tossed out for their benefit. My Red Ryder BB gun and I did a fair job of dispatching sparrows come to rob the old hens, as 30-odd notches on its wood stock attests. I still have it.

Some days I’d walk a couple miles out Pine Street to fish at the low-water bridge crossing Coal Creek.

If it was blistering hot or raining, I’d adjourn indoors to read, often devouring a book a day.

A simple upbringing, but it didn’t traumatize me any.