Scamper barefoot all day, raid neighbors’ fruit trees of peaches, plums, apricots and figs (yum-yum).
When thirsty, just drink from garden hose, eat satisfying jelly and American cheese sandwiches for lunch. Ear-to-ear watermelon slices!
Chase after ice truck for chips of ice. Handle the mercury from
broken thermometers. Paint fences with lead and linseed oil.
On Sunday, walk after church for 5-cent ice cream cone at corner parlor. Hide and seek after dark.
Play cops and robbers with handmade wooden guns shooting rubber bands from inner tubes. Enough fireworks to last all day for $1.
Sell scrap plumbing lead. Sell cigarette, tobacco and gum wrap- pings to the junk man. 50 cents
sometimes! Hand-line fishing for tom cod
on the pier. Walk a mile to see dou- ble features plus cartoon, newsreel and, most of all, the cliffhanger serial. Kites, yo-yos, marbles, roller skating.
Hopscotch in the middle of the street. No time for piano practice.
Summer 1934, ’35, ’36 in Santa Monica!
Alas, summer now is iPads.
Tom Lubisich