Summertime!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to my Mom and Dad's house. It was my Dad's birthday and I wanted to spend a little time with him and wish him a happy birthday. I also wanted to get dates and information on some 'old' pictures. (I hesitate describing them as 'old' because they are pictures of me!...so, you know - who wants to know they are old?!) Anyway, one of the pictures was me, just a few days before my 4th birthday, high atop my new slide in the backyard of our new house in Oklahoma City. (We all live in California now) Wow, it's amazing how one single image can bring back such a flood of memories! How well I remember spending so much time at the top of that slide - surveying the neighborhood, and singing at the top of my lungs! What song did I sing the most?...John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!

(here are the lyrics)

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
His name is my name too.

Whenever we go out,
The people always shout,
There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

La la la la la la la (repeat, each time getting softer)

It was also from this lofty perch that I would watch my parents and their friends from church (the young married w/children group) laugh and talk and have so much fun while making and eating homemade ice cream, or fresh watermelon. Remember the old (there's that word again!) ice cream freezers you had to crank by hand? The cranking started out easy, but as the ice cream got thicker, the cranking got harder, and the men usually had to take turns as their arm would get sore. I was usually the one to sit on a towel on top of the ice cream freezer, to keep the ice cream container from 'jumping' off of the turning peg at the bottom of the bucket. I'd have to move when they needed to check to see how 'hard' the ice cream was getting, or when they needed to add more ice and more rock salt. And when it was finally finished, nothing tasted better on hot, humid, Oklahoma nights than homemade ice cream...especially if you're sitting at the top of the slide in your own backyard. Just don't eat it too fast or you get major 'brain-freeze.' Aw- memories of summer and childhood...