Summer at home

I miss my mom most in the summer. My sisters and I spent our summers at home and we'd cook and sew and garden and do arts and crafts. My mom taught us the basics in these areas and then we took off on our own. I remember making a macrame chair and candles and a quilt from all the fabric remnants from all my sewing projects.

When we were younger we'd play outside all summer long. We rarely watched TV and we didn't snack much. Back in the '60s there wasn't much snack food. No chips other than Fritos. Potato chips were bought to go along with meals. Ice cream was for an occasional bedtime treat. Sometimes my mom would give us popcicles or soda crackers for a snack, but we didn't go looking through the fridge or cupboard for something to eat.

Sometimes my mom would send us up to the corner store - it was called Rog & Jim's - to buy her cigarettes. She would send along a note giving the cashier permission to give us the cigarettes. We would buy penny candy with the change. Back then you could get a brown paper lunch bag sack filled with candy - normally 5 pieces of candy for a penny. A quarter bought lots of candy.
Or we'd buy candy cigarettes or wax lips or candy lipsticks.

It seemed like such an innocent time back then. When you're living your life, living in the moment, you don't really expect that things will change so dramatically.

Forty-some years later the 'mom and pop' stores have been replaced by Super America gas stations. Children can't buy cigarettes with a hand-written permission slip. The penny has become obsolete.

Some things haven't changed. Summer comes every year. I still like to can tomatoes and sew and cram in as much gardening and arts and crafts as I can while I have time off from my school job. People still smoke. Lung cancer still kills more people than any other type of cancer.

My mom's spirit is strong in the summer. Actually, her spirit is strong within me all the time. Sometimes I feel like I'm strong in spite of her. Today I feel like I'm strong because of her.