I always looked forward to the unstructured days of summer, though I was reluctant to give up the pleasures of school. For some reason, except for the children who lived in our immediate neighborhood, I seldom had any contact with any of my schoolmates during summer vacation, and as the summer began to wind down, I began to think of my school friends and to miss them.

Few of my classmates lived in our immediate neighborhood. One was Norma Jo who had a heart murmur and was never out playing with the other neighbor kids. I occasionally walked the block west from our house to spend a few hours playing quietly in the house with her. An only child, she was allowed to play at her mother’s dressing table where we experimented with jewelry and make-up. We usually played quietly with her many dolls and indulged in snacks of soft white bread slathered with mayonnaise – something I had never had at home. It still makes me think of Norma Jo.

Two brothers, very close in age, lived just two houses away on our block. Dwayne was one of my classmates and his brother Dwight was less than two years older and a bit of a bully at times. He declared himself “owner” of the sidewalk that ran past our houses and refused to let me roller skate or ride my tricycle on “his” portion of the walk unless I let him ride on the back of my tricycle. This required that he hold onto my shoulders and he insisted that I must turn the wheel constantly and rapidly from side to side “like race drivers do,” he insisted The second time I “gave” him a ride, the front wheel caught on a crack in the sidewalk, we catapulted forward over the handlebars and my chin skidded along the rough concrete, tearing a flap of skin that required many stitches and a serious conversation between my dad and the boys’ father who happened to be a doctor, but not the one who repaired the damage. When I was older, Dwight and I became good friends in college and the “accident” was never mentioned.

There are subtle changes in the atmosphere and vegetation as summer begins to wane, changes that bring a feeling of both endings and beginnings resulting in a nostalgic yearning tempered by an eagerness for change. It brought, inexplicably, a compulsion to take one more bike ride which, for some reason, ended at the schoolhouse playground. It was as if we needed to reassure ourselves it was still there and waiting for our return. We usually took a few rides on the swings with their long, clanking chains, a quick turn on the teeter-totter and climbed to the top of the Jungle-gym to survey the landscape. Then, remembering it was time for the redhaws to be ripe, we’d stroll down to the big hawthorn tree and nibble a few of the tiny red fruits.

There was a sheltered paved area tucked into the southwest niche of the school building where we often spent recesses jumping rope or playing catch with basketball-size red rubber balls when the playground was too muddy or too snowy. It was strictly forbidden, during the school year, to ride bicycles on that paved area, so of course we delighted in doing just that during our late summer excursion. Then, with nothing more to do except wait for the first day of classes, we rode our bikes slowly homeward, taking the route we would be walking just a few days later.

At home, we would help Mother put away the Parcheesi, Chinese checkers and other board games, comic books, coloring books and other summer pastimes in the closet under the stairs and bring out the arithmetic and spelling flashcards, the wooden map puzzle of the United states, barely used tins of water colors and sets of colored pencils. We gladly used last year’s rulers, scissors and a few other yearly requirements that were always on the supply list, but we preferred to arrive that first day with spanking new tablets, sharp-pointed crayons and long, yellow No. 2 pencils with pristine erasers. If there were left-over workbooks or unfinished projects from last year, we might spend a few hours playing at “school.” I was suddenly tired of summer and could hardly wait for school to start.