Summertime Memories

While the temperature has been near record levels in my little corner of the world (in South Australia), recently, it’s made me, and probably everyone else in the state seriously appreciate our air conditioners. I have no idea how ancestors coped with 40C+ days without air conditioners? Serious kudos to them. They did it tough and they survived, and it reminds me of one of my all-time favourite genealogy quotes …

But also I’ve been thinking about Summertime and what we did when I was young. How many of these can you relate to?

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Firstly sprinklers were used to not only water the lawn, but were also a great way to keep kids occupied and cool, as they played in the water. But along with that there was plenty of clover and bees – which of course also resulted in beestings.

There was the slip’n’slide, do you remember that? That was cool, at least until too much dirt grit got on it, then grazed you as you slid down.

There was the little kiddy pool. That was well used, and when my bother and I got older my family got a bigger above ground pool. Summertime as a kid was pretty much spent in the pool!

And who remembers the black innertube rubber tyres? They were the best in the pool. There was none of the fancy plastic blow-up ones that are available these days.

Cordial or juice icy poles. You know the ones that were frozen in the tupperware iceblock moulds. If you’ve forgotten when they looked like, you can check them out here.

The days were filled with outdoor life. Bike riding to friends houses, playing in nearby creeks, or getting dropped at a friend or neighbours house for the day, particularly if they had a pool or dam. It was life back then.

Tadpoling. I was lucky enough to have a couple of creeks near my place, so when my friends and I weren’t in the pool or dam, we would go out and and catch tadpoles.

When you went to playgrounds, yes you burned your bum, because the slippery dip (along with every other piece of play equipment) was metal! None of this plastic stuff. But we survived.

On the rare occasion when you weren’t outside on a hot day, you were probably parked in front of the portable (what is now called “retro”) water cooler air conditioner. You know the ones on wheels, that you could wheel into a room, that was heaven on a hot day. Ours looked pretty similar to this one.

So that’s just a few of my Summertime memories. What are yours?

 

2 Responses to “Summertime Memories”

1. Nola Mackey says:

   January 21, 2019 at 6:08 am

   Yes! We remember those days too.

   Reply
2. Kylie says:

   January 21, 2019 at 9:04 am

   I remember lying on the lino in our front room because it was cool. We didn’t have mains water so no sprinklers or pools. I am the youngest so I got the last bath, then it was my job to bucket the water out onto the garden.

   Reply