Summers in the Village: Post II: Cloud Gazing and Other Activities

Simpler pleasures of childhood days back in the Village.  Life in your backyard and everyone else's, too, was uncomplicated, at least for us children.

In the 50's in the Village summer activities included drowsily lying on a blanket on a hot summer day. Only thing to do was look for cloud pictures and daydream.  Dream about what
wonders you would do as an adult.

This, of course, after household chores were done.

                                                                   One of my Mom's photos 

Cloud watching might be accompanied by the drone of bees visiting the honeysuckle.  No loud boom boxes then.  The most you might hear was the push lawnmower chewing up

the grass with the help of a Dad or a brother. 

You might also hear the ccrrraackkk of a wooden bat colliding with a baseball as some boys got a

pickup baseball game going nearby.  Totally spontaneous, the boys in the Village 

homed in on it like ants at a picnic. 

Way back "in the day" Arlene Gouveia tells us that a group of neighborhood

girls formed their own baseball team. Ahead of Title IX they played at what was then

called the Winter St. Playground, land near Ventura's Grain on

Longmeadow Road.  So we will pretend there is a ponytail hidden under this cap. these
girls who were 

The Village version of a League of Their Own.

By all accounts they were quite good. Emma Andrade

and Mary Medeiros Veira Fontes were members, Mary being the catcher.

(Emma Andrare and Leo De Mello shared this with Arlene).

Precious is the time now when one can manage to sit under a shady tree (or grapevine more often in those days) letting thoughts roam where they would. You might then have also heard the soothing cluck-cluck of chickens in the next yard chicken coop as they scratched the dirt looking for food.

In the time before air conditioning the outside was the coolest place to be.  People learned to minimize activities during the hottest part of the day.  Grandmothers could be seen fanning themselves on front porches.  Laundry hung lazily in the heat, hardly moving in the rare breeze.  In the house you learned to find air flows, opening as many windows as possible with a portable screen that slid open and shut.  Babies were bathed in kitchen sinks to cool

them off. Then dressed only in diapers (cloth)  they were placed 

in their carriages in the shade with

a net over the opening to keep bugs out.  

Then, everyone for an afternoon nap!

 One of the cooling treats - besides the coming of the Ice Cream truck-

 was  Mom's chilled homemade root beer.   

I can still taste those root beer floats....root beer with vanilla ice cream.

My Mom made root beer from scratch every year.  There was big excitement

one summer as somehow, in the heat, the capped bottles started to explode, one by one.  What a racket, and what a frothy mess!!  Back then one did not think violence or terrorism,
 today we would all hit the floor!

                                                                Ah, simpler days.

               Just a treat to lull you if you are fortunate to be lazing on a summer day....  or not. 

I find myself listening to it over and over.  Thanks Van Morrison.