Question Of The Day - Monday, May 20, 2019

MoochNNoodles

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Pardon me while I celebrate the fact that it's the LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL!!! :banana2:




What did you do with your summer breaks as a kid and teenager?




As a kid I spent most of them either at my Grandparent's or my friend's house. Her mom ran a daycare so I went there before and after school too. We would swim ALL day and play with the little kids. We would ride our bikes and play in the creek next to her house. At my Grandparent's there was always something fun to do or help with. Gram always let us help in the kitchen and Grandpa let us help with his projects too; in the gardens and around the house. Gram and I always had lunch together while watching The Price is Right. I miss those days so much!

As a teen I mostly spent my summers between my 2 grandparent's houses. We had moved out of state so I was to spend my summers with my Dad; who worked and lived way out on the country. So he let me stay in town where I could be around family all the time. My Grandparents often babysat my older cousin's kids while she worked so I got to be with them too. Most days were pretty laid back; but we would go up into the mountains for some hiking and to a water park. My other Grandma would do some back-to-school shopping for me too.

Since I was away most of the summer I never had to work a summer job. When I was at home Mom always left lists of chores to get done each day. Most of them were done in a mad dash about 30 minutes before she was due home from work. ;) But I got a lot of reading and things done too. And as we got old enough to drive I'd go places with my friends but we were good kids. We mostly just acted goofy and hung out. :lol2:
 

aliceneko

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I didn't have many friends in primary and secondary school due to a long history of bullying at both so I didn't really hang out much. I went on trips abroad, though, with my family which I have many lovely memories from. Once I made more friends and became more social towards the end of school I began going to a lot more parties and social gatherings during summer.
 

Graceful-Lily

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I didn't have many friends in primary and secondary school due to a long history of bullying at both so I didn't really hang out much.
Same with me. I think I hung out with family mostly. My sister would plan get aways and we'd go swimming or go on long drives and spend the night in a hotel.
 

Elphaba09

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I had four friends when I was young. Three moved to different states by middle school. I saw one of them every other summer because she visited her grandma. The one that lived near me would go to visit her family in another state for two months during the summer. I hung out with her when she was home. My mother was strict, if I am going to put it lightly or nicely, and would not let my sisters or me do much of anything. Mainly, we stayed at home, in our rooms. I read a lot.
 

lizzie

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My older sister and I were big bike riders and rode our bikes all over the place.We had so much fun all the different places we'd go and people we'd visit.Our folks always took a summer vacation,be it camping or to the ocean and that was always wonderful.We always got to spend a week with our grandparents too,which was cool.Mostly I remember fun times!
 

susanm9006

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When I was grade school age we were turned loose in summers in the morning with the only rule at my house being we needed to show up for dinner. The neighbors had six kids and their mom put a lunch spread outside everyday since the kids weren’t allowed to come in (seriously) until dinner so we usually ate there and grabbed snacks from the gardens. We created and played games, spend full day in the woods and swam in a local creek. After dinner we played outside until dark, usually ending with a game of Pom Pom Pullaway which was a tag like game or catching fireflies. Great summers.

As a teen I worked at a local drive in or babysat kids most afternoons and evenings.
 

1 bruce 1

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Bike rides, swimming, climbing trees, building forts (or using a tree and our imaginations), reading, telling ghost stories, camping, playing tag and any other game we could think of or make up. We went barefoot and didn't contract diseases and if anyone cut their foot, you put a band aid on it and played some more.
We also liked to combine the bike rides with swimming and would ride into the water on our bikes until they got rusty. Whoops.
We were healthy, robust, and muscular kids.

I just thought that last line through. Excuse me, time for a bike ride :lol:
 

maggiedemi

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I spent the summers playing outside with my brothers, riding bikes, 3-wheeler, climbing trees, making sand castles, playing with our cats & bunnies. We would go to the beach on the weekends. I would spend the night at my Grandma's in town for a few days each summer, and sometimes my cousin's house.
 

MonaLyssa33

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My mom would sign us up for a program through the school district called Summer Activities. It's through one of those programs that I learned how to crochet, which I still do frequently. Those didn't happen throughout the summer, so we'd also go camping or me and my sister would stay inside and watch a lot of daytime TV.
 

DreamerRose

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Until I was in junior high, I played outside all summer with the other kids. The twins next door had an above ground pool made by a friend in the Navy Shipyards. We loved it, but finally got so big that we broke the bottom seams. After repairs a couple of times, it was taken away. As a teenager, I sewed a lot and rode my horse. We then belonged to a swim club and we spent many afternoons there to get away from the heat. Few homes were air conditioned, but most stores were. Movie theaters were the first to install air conditioning. Can you imagine watching a movie on a hot summer night without air conditioning? The Recreation Department showed a movie outside in the park down the street once a week. My Dad's newspaper sponsored the movie night with a short commercial of the newsroom, and several times I saw Dad sitting at the copydesk. It was a thrill to see my Dad on the silver screen!
 

Willowy

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Do you stop schoolwork for the whole summer? The homeschoolers I grew up with didn't; they didn't want their kids to forget stuff or be idle, etc.

My mom was overprotective and didn't let us do much. But it was still a more outdoor lifestyle than most people live now. When I turned 10 (this is when Navy kids are issued their own ID cards), kids could take the Base Bus for free and go places by themselves. That was also the age the swimming pool let kids come without their parents. So before I was 10 it was pretty boring, just playing outside the apartment or going to the playground. After I turned 10 it opened up a lot of other possibilities! My friends and I spent pretty much every spare minute at the pool, the library, or going to the other parks on base that we could only reach by taking the Bus. We also went to day camp and Youth Sports. But day camp was only a few weeks and sports were only a few hours a week. There were longer camp programs for kids whose parents worked but we didn't go to those.

The base had other kid-centric things like movies at the park or library specials. On-base military life is very family-centric and well-funded, or was at the time anyway. It was a shock when we moved here and there were NO arrangements for kids during the summer at all. That's changed a little since then but there still aren't many options. The pool is open but the bus costs $5 a ride so that's out unless one of the neighbors doesn't work and is willing to drive a vanful of kids there.
 
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LTS3

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The city didn't offer a whole lot of free summer programs for kids to do during the summer way back then. Or maybe they did but it wasn't well advertised. I recall one summer my mom signed my younger brother and I for a summer program at the library. We were there to borrow books and the librarian mentioned the summer program. Other years my parents signed me up for summer school. In my pre-teens I was signed up for a sports camp for 2 summers in a row because a neighbor pulled strings with the local college that was organizing the camp to get me in for free. I hated the camp because I hate sports and I hated the bullies even more :cringe: My parents wanted to sign me up for a third summer but I was like NO :livid: Then in high school I was forced to get a summer job.
 

maggiedemi

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The twins next door had an above ground pool made by a friend in the Navy Shipyards. We loved it, but finally got so big that we broke the bottom seams.
We had one of those pools, but my brother and I busted it by making a whirlpool. It was his idea, we would swim in a circle really fast. But we banged against the sides and they eventually broke.
 

neely

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When I was grade school age we were turned loose in summers in the morning with the only rule at my house being we needed to show up for dinner.
:yeah: That describes my summer to a tee!

We played with all the neighborhood kids, everyone was included. We went home for dinner and back out again to wait for the Good Humor ice cream truck. We rode bikes, jumped rope, played dodge ball and investigated vacant lots. When I was a teenager we hung out at the beach, (lake). By the time I was a junior in high school I got my first summer job working in an insurance office. I thought I hit the jackpot because I earned my very first paycheck. :thumbsup:
 

Winchester

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When I was young, I lived with my grandmother during the summers and during most of my school holidays. Summers were wonderful. I had lots of cousins; we'd go back to the creek for most of the day and swim. One of my cousins and I used to have the neatest tea parties on rainy days with Grandma's cookies. She also had a huge button container and we'd spend hours going through buttons. Another cousin and I used to bike around the neighborhood. Yet another cousin had an in-ground pool, so we spent hours there, too. And I would often find myself on Grandma's huge front porch, with my nose in a book. Looking back, it was just absolutely perfect.

When I got older, Dad got me a job as a kitchen slave at our local hospital, so my summers with Grandma came to an end. And I got married when I was 16, so I "adulted" fairly early.
 
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