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2002-05-29 - 11:05 a.m.

In grade school it was this time of year we were told to get out our Big Chief tablets and write our How I'm Going To Spend My Summer Vacation paper. A meaningless assignment intended to eat up the last of the school day and keep us busy and out of the teacher’s hair. I loved those papers, not just for the writing, but because I could lose myself in daydreams of the upcoming summer. The anticipation of all I’d do during the carefree, warm days would possess me, and I’d fidget and nearly bounce myself out of my chair.

Much has changed over the years, but a lot has remained the same. When I start to daydream about how I’ll spend my summer months I still get the fidgets and sometimes have to hold myself in my chair. And many of the things I enjoyed as a kid still fascinate me. Rather than see myself as infantile—or simple-minded, even though some might give that a hearty Yes vote--I prefer to think of myself as a big, overgrown kid!

Only a couple of summertime activities from childhood would be deleted from an essay today. Being up at the crack of dawn is no longer an urgent need. I’m still fairly ignorant of some things, but I have figured out I won’t miss anything if I sleep past sunrise. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy spending an early morning on the porch with a cup of Starbuck’s listening to the birds serenade, but I can do that after 7!

Where once I enjoyed camping, today my idea of camping is a fully equipped and air-conditioned cabin. I still think there’s nothing better than a breakfast cooked and eaten outdoors, and I love the smell of wood smoke from a campfire, but no way am I going sleep on the ground with little more than a flimsy sheet of nylon separating me from the slithery things sharing the woods with me. It’s been 19 years since I’ve spent a night in a tent. The night was rainy and cold, and I crawled from the tent soaked and cold the next morning. The campstove wouldn’t light, and the firewood was too damn wet to ignite. That was the end of the outdoor sleeping adventure for me.

Through my mid-teens my parents took family vacations. Disneyland. Gettysburg and Washington D. C. San Diego and LaJolla. The Rocky Mountains. The Grand Tetons. The Black Hills. Yellow Stone. The Lake of the Ozarks. Although I now save any extensive traveling for March break, I’m not opposed to adding a short trip to my summer agenda, and I can get just as turned-on with a trip to Lake of the Ozarks today as I did several years ago.

And it’s no secret I can get turned-on with day-trips on our own hometown water paradise. Either kicking up my heels—or is that kicking up a wake?—with friends, or just first mate Emma and a good book, I look forward to pleasant days on the water.

I’ve always liked to play around with words, stringing them together in what might be some worthwhile piece of writing. When I was younger I’d sit at the picnic table under the shade of an Elm tree, scribbling my stories in black and white Ledger books. Writing still has a place on my list of things to do during summer, although it’s become one of those things I’ve ignored. It’s back on this summer’s list, and once again I’ve vowed to drag out an old book manuscript tucked in the study closet and try to put some life back into it.

Reading has gained a higher place on my adult list of things to do. Spurred by Last Call, a ShowTime movie based on a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s secretary, I’ve decided to haul out my collection of Fitzgerald’s works and read them again this summer. That’s in addition to any new mystery works out by my favorite authors.

The feeling of having the collar removed and being free of the leash of responsibilities is as good today as it was fortysomething years ago, and I’m starting to bounce and fidget and look forward to the day I can run from the schoolhouse and enjoy my freedom.

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