Aug. 28--August is drawing to a close, which means it's time for our final round of summer memories.
At the beginning of June, my Tribune colleagues and I recalled our misspent summers -- no schedules, no enrichment, often no supervision. It was a beautiful time.
You generously responded with your own summer memories, which we've been publishing here throughout the summer. Today is the final round.
My favorite part of the summer was right when school let out -- three months of blank days on the calendar. Time to fill playing ball in the fields with my two big brothers and cousins, climbing trees, making strawberry jam with my grandmother, playing ditch in the neighborhood till the streetlights came on and camping out in the backyard tent with my best friend, Victoria.
My favorite week was when we'd pile into our dad's Chevy and drive to my grandparents' in Chicago to bring them with us on our annual pilgrimage to a cabin in northern Wisconsin. With the luggage rack on the car roof nearly toppling over and our dad's outboard motor stuffed into the trunk, we (all seven of us) drove the eight-hour trip with no air conditioner.
We spent the week fishing, playing king of the raft, going on hikes and looking for deer, catching tadpoles and taunting the crayfish, making regular stops to the corner ice cream store (still there to this day), playing cards, heading to the town garbage dump for sightings of bears, going to the water ski show, and sitting out under the stars at night with nothing but the haunting sound of a loon in the distance. These memories lie wrapped snugly around my heart. I take them out when the stresses of life overwhelm me, and I'm so grateful to have them.
-- Karen Kurzdorfer
In the mid-1950s, we lived in the Ridge Terrace Apartments in Rogers Park. Our neighborhood was teeming with kids, most living in apartment buildings. Summer evenings, our dads took us to the Dairy Queen, a block and a half north in Evanston on Howard Street. On July Fourth, we ran through the alley between Ridge and Hoyne with sparklers.
The vacant southeast corner lot at Fargo Avenue and Ridge Road was large enough for (an apartment) building, which came in 1958. But, until then, it was a huge playground for all. In the center was a gigantic tree that had been struck by lightning, was split down the middle and was lying on the grass in two living parts. It was great climbing.
There were still victory gardens, influenced by World War II, and a huge clothesline for all the moms to use. Most mothers still used wringer washing machines. They were amazing contraptions for a little boy, with water pumps and moving parts. Each oscillating agitator had a unique beat, not unlike the rock music of the '60s, 10 years later.
-- Joe Vosicky
I was left unsupervised with my older sister. We must have been about 7 and 10 -- at the oldest. We would lay a towel out in the middle of our third-floor apartment living room floor and take turns lying on the towel and dumping buckets full of water onto each other. We created our own indoor swimming pool. I still wonder what we did with the water and how we cleaned up. I have no idea how our parents never found out. Makes me wonder what my kids will come up with.
-- Carolina Franco
During the '50s, my parents would drive me and my four siblings from the city near 74th and Morgan streets way out to Orland Park. After driving through forests and farm country, we would arrive at our cousins', and the fun would begin. We would swing on their swing set behind their house and look down and see nothing but farmland, pastures, grazing horses and wide open spaces. My dad and uncle would ride around the land in an old Jeep that my young cousins were also adept at driving. We would run around the forest on their land playing hide-and-seek and looking for Indian artifacts. My brothers and cousins would shoot real guns at targets in the distance (supervised, of course). We would also shoot with bows and arrows at targets on the large expanse of lawn. My uncle built a little house on the property where my younger sister and cousins would play house all day, and they sometimes would sleep in the little house overnight.
What a surprise when we were all reminiscing about our childhood that some of the cousins said they got bored on the farm and the biggest thrill for them over the summer was to go visit us in the big city. They loved that we had easy access to playmates in the neighborhood, that we were so close to stores, and with their mom's passion for the Cubs -- which was kind of unusual in the far South Side of Chicago in the '50s -- that it was so much closer to Wrigley Field.
-- Patricia Roberts
The local library was a small converted house in town, which was one mile from my home. It contained two 8-foot rows of fairy tale books. Since I could only check out three books per visit, sometimes I would need to ride my bike to town twice per week. At home I could pretend with the heroes or heroines of the books to follow thin webs through dark passages to secret chambers with surprise treasures or hideous monsters. At the end of each book, I was happy and relieved that "we" had survived. When I ran out of fairy tale books and Cherry Ames nurse books, I tried adult best-sellers that I had read about in the newspaper. The librarian quickly said, "I can't let you check this out. Your mother wouldn't approve."
-- Marjorie Vander Wagen
My beloved mother was a World War II baby who always said she had the best childhood growing up on a 300-acre farm in Lockport, and the hub of the farm was the kitchen. Her mother's parents also lived there, and family cooking filled the recipients with the love they had for a simple and beautiful life. My dad preceded my mom in death, and when I lost her in June 2012, I told everyone that the best inheritance she left was her worn and ragged recipe book.
Summer for me was playing hard with my friends and then being treated by mom to specials like root beer floats, potato salad, deviled eggs, daffodil dip (I ate the entire serving with another friend before the family noticed they'd lost out), fried chicken, baked beans, seven-layer cream cheese bars, brownies and so much more. She even had menus written with "doodles" for Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day. No picnic could be alike.
It was carefree and laid-back, but mom made it all so beautiful and special. It epitomized who she was. She wanted her family to know how much she loved them, and one of the ways she did it was through food. Last year, I finally got the courage to make her recipes and share them with my friends.
-- Lisa Carlson
