Memoir Monday #17 (7/1-7/7) - When You Were a Child, What Did You Look Forward to Most?

ericvancewalton (79)in #memoirmonday • 8 months ago (edited)

Memoir

/ˈmemˌwär/ noun. a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation. Usually memoirs. an account of one's personal life and experiences; autobiography. the published record of the proceedings of a group or organization, as of a learned society.

Can you believe we've been doing this for 17 weeks already? Please forgive me, I’m posting this one a bit earlier because I’ll be traveling to Ohio for my Mom's 80th birthday celebration towards the end of this week. This prompt stirred up so many cherished memories for me, it’s been the most enjoyable Memoir Monday post yet. I can’t wait to read what some of you post. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about you and more about the world at large through your stories.

Memoir Monday has grown so much that I won’t be able to comment on everyone’s posts anymore (and get my own work done) but I’ll still be supporting your posts with reblogs, votes, and shares on my other social media accounts (X, Facebook, etc.).

For all of those who’ve regularly participated in Memoir Monday - keep going, you’re making great progress in chronicling your very own life story for future generations to enjoy.

For those who missed the inaugural post explaining what the Memoir Monday initiative is all about you can find it here.

Now for next week’s Memoir Monday prompt:

When you were a child, what did you look forward to most?

My answer: Carefree Summers.

When I was growing up in the 1970’s and 80’s what I looked forward to most was the unstructured freedom that summer vacation gave us. I always did very well in school but didn’t enjoy most aspects of it. I had way too much energy to sit still and remember being extremely bored and daydreaming most of the time. I went to Fairmoor Elementary school until the fourth grade. I have many good memories of that little neighborhood school.

Summer vacation would last from early June until September and during those first few weeks it felt like summer would last forever. The anticipation that built up during those last few weeks of the school year were sheer joy — homework started to taper off and I started dreaming of sleeping in until eight o’clock, waking to the cooing of the mourning doves that perched on the power lines behind our house, and having the entire day to play with my neighborhood friends and ride my bike. Summers were unabashedly carefree.

When I turned nine or ten my parents started giving me the freedom to ride further away from home. My friends and I would ride our bikes along the maze of sidewalks that ran behind the Mayfair Apartments to the convenience store at corner of Broad and James. This network of sidewalks spanned over a mile from our elementary school nearly to Broad street. We would call these sidewalks our “trails”.

While riding these trails we found an old, deteriorating playground, probably built in the late 1940’s, on Ashburton Ave that not many people from our block knew about. We referred to this as the “secret playground” and would slide down the huge slide, spin each other on the merry-go-round, and try to flip each other off the see-saws. All of the equipment on this playground would be considered extremely dangerous by today’s standards.

Me, my friend Sean Moneypenny and his Basset Hound, Spot.

Summertime was pretty much a nonstop parade of fun. My birthday falls in the middle of June too so I had that to look forward to then came Independence Day with its barbecues and fireworks. I can still see my Dad squeezing out half the bottle of charcoal lighter on the grill as the flame slowly crept up that flammable stream. To this day I think it's funny that I associate the smell of petroleum (lighter fluid) with hamburgers and hotdogs.

Fireworks were illegal in Ohio back then but occasionally my Dad would get a few from someone at work who had made a run to one of the bordering states. This made him an instant hero in our book and made us the envy of other kids on the block. The only fireworks we could legally buy in Ohio were weak ones like smoke bombs, sparklers, and the little ones called Bang Snaps that barely made noise. Real fireworks such as M-80’s, roman candles, and bottle rockets were the epitome of fun for most of us boys in the 1970s. I still don’t understand the fascination they held for us back then, maybe it was the whole “forbidden fruit” aspect.

Around the time I was twelve my parents bought a used pop-up camper that slept four. Towards the end of July we would take a family vacation to the East Coast and camp all along the shores of New England, visiting Boston, Hershey, PA, and New York City. We did this as a family for four or five years and these were some of the best memories of my childhood and my first experiences traveling outside of Ohio. Back then there were less national brands and franchises so when you traveled to another part of the country you really did get to experience different things, especially when it came to food. The pizza and seafood were phenomenal in New England and they had a soft drink called Birch Beer that we couldn't get enough of.

My cousin Mary, Me, and my brother Curt in Boston (1986).

The Ohio State Fair usually started around late August. This signaled the beginning of the end of summer vacation. I started counting down the weeks before the new school year started at that point. I was also finding myself getting pretty bored with having all that free time.

This boredom usually forced me to do more indoor activities, like drawing, writing, and reading. After the State Fair was over it was time to shop for school clothes at JCPenney or Kmart. I always had a love/hate relationship with school clothes shopping because that truly marked the end of summer vacation. By this point we only had a week or two before the joys of summer would be nothing but a distant memory.

I’m truly thankful for these carefree summers before the drama of dating and the tumultuous teenage years. They seem like lifetimes ago now but whenever I think about the freedom and the fun we had I can’t help but smile. This was an amazing time to be a kid. These carefree summers were valuable, because it taught me what true freedom was. I didn’t experience anything remotely like this again until I left the workforce when I was forty-six to become a full time writer.

Rules of Engagement

Please reblog this first post and share on other social platforms so we cast the widest net possible for this initiative;
Pictures paint a thousand words. Include pictures in your posts if you have them;
Answer each Memoir Monday prompt question in your own post. If possible, the prompt question will be published in the week prior so you'll have the entire week to answer and publish your own post;
Have fun with it, don't worry about getting behind, or jumping into the project at any point after we've begun; and
Lastly, be sure to include the tag #memoirmonday.

It's that simple.

At the end of the next twelve months we'll have created something immensely valuable together. It's so important to know our "whys" in life and there's no better way to do that than this.

Someday all that will be left of our existence are memories of us, our deeds, and words. It's up to you to leave as rich of a heritage as possible for future generations to learn from. So, go ahead, tell your stories. I can't wait to read them.

Be well and make the most of this day. I want to sincerely thank all of the participants thus far. I've really enjoyed reading your posts!

~Eric Vance Walton~

(All photos are original.)

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8 months ago in #memoirmonday by ericvancewalton (79)

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jlufer (79) 8 months ago

This will be another nice week to remember from our childhood, I love the theme you have chosen.
What beautiful memories you have, and I appreciate you sharing them with us.
Have a great trip, and my birthday greetings to your dear mother. May you enjoy the celebration very much.Good afternoon dear friend @ericvancewalton