School kids won’t be eager to read this, but summer vacation is about two-thirds over. Classes resume in less than a month!

Before kindergarten summer vacation doesn’t mean much because life is pretty much a vacation every day anyway. And after you get a job as a teenager, summer vacation generally means work. But during those wonderful years in between, summer vacation means, well, it means summer vacation.

It’s been many years since I enjoyed a summer vacation but I remember them well. (I am retired but retirement is not as fun as summer vacation.)

The first hint of summer vacation for the Huisman boys came on a Saturday night in May when Dad took us to the barber for butch haircuts. Dad allowed us to grow our hair longer during the cooler months but come late spring we’d be down at Lyle Shay’s barber shop getting our hair cut short — really short.

For the first week or two after our haircuts we looked like skinned white rats but after some time in the sun our scalps would tan like our backs and bellies.

One of the joys of summer vacation was the fact mothers didn’t care if you slept late. In fact, I suspect Mom prayed that her tribe would sleep late. Those precious morning moments were likely the only peace and quiet she experienced during the day.

With butch haircuts and an anything-works-wardrobe, getting up and getting ready for the day took only a matter of minutes. After a big bowl of Cheerios an entire day free of obligations stretched before us.

Depending upon our mood, we could either play or fight with our brothers or we could play or fight with the neighbor kids.

Or, we could get some scraps of wood and build a tree house. Perhaps we could find some wheels and wood and build a downhill racer.

This might be the day we rounded up the neighborhood kids to play baseball in the empty lot in our block.

Then again, we might hike out to the edge of town and pick up pop bottles along the highway. Not too many, of course — just enough to buy a bottle of pop and a candy bar.

There was always the option of finding a piece of lumber and building a bicycle ramp. Joey Chitwood’s Thrill Show drivers had nothing on the bicycle dare devils of our neighborhood.

When the thrill of jumping ramps (or the pain of a bad jump wore off, whichever came first) we could always run down the street and play at the school playground.

Once in a while you could catch Chuck Carlson, a college student home for the summer, riding his go-cart around a small dirt track near his home. If you were really lucky, Chuck might let you actually drive his go-cart around the track a few times.

If you had a little jingle in your pocket you could ride your bike to the Gem Cafe on Main Street and buy a cherry coke for a nickel. If you had an extra nickel you could listen to a Jerry Lee Lewis song on the jukebox. A nickel would also buy a fresh, sometimes still warm glazed donut at Champion’s Bakery up the street or an ice cream cone across the street at Beatty’s Dairy.

Then again, we might round up enough neighbor kids to play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers. It’s amazing how well a thumb and forefinger work for a pistol.

By late afternoon, if one’s energy began to wane or if the heat grew too intense you could go into the house, lay in front of the electric fan and watch the Mickey Mouse Club. Spin and Marty and the Hardy Boys had even more exciting adventures than we did.

A little late afternoon television served to allow one’s energy to rekindle so after supper we could play outside even more.

As twilight crept over the neighborhood you heard parents calling their offspring in from play. Before long the street was quiet and the action had moved into bathrooms as one-by-one (or sometimes two-by-two) we took our baths and got ready for a night of sleep (the kind of sleep you don’t appreciate until you’re much older.) After all, we needed the rest so we could start all over the next day.

Summer vacation was a great time of year!

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2023 by Huisman Communications.