The Saturday Morning Blogger – Days of summer

James Barrington

When I was a child I looked forward to summer with a special kind of longing. I enjoyed school, but breaking the routine of “time to get up” and “bedtime” was a treat. My dad was much too rigid from his farm life during the Depression to his Army days during World War II, but when I could “sleep in” it was a tiny taste of Heaven.

Summer days brought opportunities to swim or picnic. I would spend hours reading library books. I enjoyed exploring the town on my bicycle. Back in the early 60’s, small town America was still a safe place to live – or at least pre-teens and their parents seemed to think so. The big cities were where crime occurred and small towns were “where everybody knows your name.”

I remember being attacked by two German Shepherd dogs the summer I was 17. I stormed into the house and pulled my dad’s .22 rifle out of the closet and was starting out the door to dispatch those two dogs when my mom stopped me, noticing the blood flowing from the torn leg on my blue jeans where the dogs’ teeth had found flesh. She stopped me and called the local town marshal. He impounded the dogs and I never saw them again.

I don’t remember fishing much as a child. I played little league baseball a couple of years – not very well. Some of my best memories of childhood summers were hunting on my grandparents’ farm outside Nacogdoches. I became proficient with my dad’s .22 rife and my granddad’s 410 gauge shotgun. I shot a good share of armadillos and rabbits. I shot a few squirrels and a few snakes. I even used the .22 to “thin the herd” of roosters when they started outnumbering the “laying hens.”

This summer I’m looking forward to some time to visit our daughter and grandsons in Maine. The younger one is on a little league team. His skill, by all accounts, far exceed what I was able to do at his age. As summer approaches, I’m looking forward to some cooler days that the Texas summers when we visit “Down East” Maine and enjoy a lobster dinner and some little league baseball.