My strongest childhood summer memories involve visits to Iowa and South Dakota to visit my grandparents.
My dad, a touring musician with a military band, basically got the whole month of July off every year.
So, we generally spent that time traveling, and we always made a stop in Iowa and South Dakota.
My favorite part of our Iowa visits is that my dad would take my siblings and me to Wacky Waters, a water park surrounded by cornfields.
And as I’ve written about before, I had a lot of favorite parts of visiting South Dakota.
Adult memories?
In my earlier adult years, I had a string of not-great summers. My pregnancies with Lisey, Sonia, and Zoe all started out in the summer, which meant that the worst of my hyperemesis spread across June, July, and August.
A weird after-effect from that experience is that for a while, even when I wasn’t pregnant, as the late spring weather heated up to summer temps, I actually experienced mild waves of nausea because I associated hot weather with being sick.
Zoe is 14 now, so the association between summer and nausea has faded, mercifully!
Kind of funny that a member of a military band had July off. I would have thought they would have been particularly busy for the 4th.
As for summer . . . since we were in a different place every three years, we didn’t have a real summer routine. I remember getting stung every summer by wasps in Alaska. :- I remember swimming in our pool in Arizona and the dry, chilling feel of coming inside to the air-conditioned house.
As an adult, I associate summer with a lot of work in the garden and preserving food. Winter is much more restful to me as an adult for that reason.
I never thought of it that way, but it is kind of funny! My dad’s band was not the one that played at a lot of events and holidays. They had several long out of town tours each year rather than one and done events all year long.
The Army had several bands, and I know there was another one that got scheduled to play events (like inaugurations and such).
Since we were a public relations Army band, we would tour across the entire country every 2 1/2 years. We would play July 4 festivities as part of the 10 days summer tour and then have a three week blanket leave period for the rest of July before we begin preparing for our fall tour. We would usually be gone around 120 days a year.
Often we would partner with the Detroit Symphony orchestra and play joint concerts around July 4 at Greenfield Village.
Definitely visiting my grandparents on their farm in Michigan. Running through cornfields and working in the garden. It’s one of the reasons I live in the country and have a garden today.
Funny you should mention hyperemeisis. Not many people know what it is. But I had it too. And I have associations years later too with certain times of the year and smells from it too!
Only this https://www.facebook.com/MarkHeilHarvesting/
… an amazing way to grow up.
The first thing I can think of is endless hot summer days…thank goodness for the neighborhood swim club membership!
Mostly posting to say a big “thank you” for the link back to the blog. Hooray!
My Dad was a sign painter and we would “ride the route” after it got dark to make sure the lights were shining on the billboards. He got a little extra money for this. Country music on the radio, feeling safe with my Dad and sometimes an ice cream cone. Even now my favorite thing to do is get taken for a ride at dusk when it’s cooler. No a/c though.
Everyone’s memories sound so idyllic in the country, on farms etc, mine is simple in comparison. My parents weren’t wealthy at all but I didn’t realise until I was an adult. They never told me we were going on holiday, (because they were waiting for a cheap deal). I would be told on the Friday evening after I’d spent the day with my Nan and grandad whilst my parents worked. We would throw luggage and food into the car and set off early on the Saturday morning to a caravan for a week at the coast. I also know as an adult that they could never book early because they didn’t know if they could afford it. The memory of that excitement of an early Saturday morning departure is the best summer memory for me.