Summer Days of the Free Birds

What a fun time of year! Spring has definitely sprung in our neck of the woods. The grass is growing like a weed – well, you know what I mean… I’ve cut it at least three or four times already! The temperatures are hovering around 80 degrees (although last weekend was 50 - it is Wisconsin, after all…) It’s been fun on Facebook lately with people posting pictures of their kids’ last school band and choir concerts, their end-of-the-year field trip photos, their children’s pending graduation plans… All of these signs point toward one thing – the end of the school year is nearing and summer vacation is about to kick off!

I ask you with all seriousness – where in the world do the years go? I suppose that the mere fact that I’m asking the question points to the obvious - I’m getting old. Certainly, when you’re going through the daily ups and downs of child rearing and raising you know exactly where the year is and the speed at which it’s moving. But since I’m no longer participating in the daily tutelage of youngsters, I’ve begun to marvel at exactly how quickly the clock moves forward.

So as I reflect back, I can’t help but smile when I think about some “last day of school” occasions of our own. Of course my kids began their final countdowns on May1st. “Only six weeks of school left, but not counting weekends or Memorial Day, that only leaves…” and they calculated the precise amount of days remaining until the very last day. There was always such an energy that surrounded this time of the year.

In the late 90’s when my own two kids (Megan and Tony) were about 8 and 11, 9 and 12, etc. we had some great times. I owned an older model LeBaron convertible – a robin’s egg blue color body, with a black top. As the final bell rang at 3:25, I’d pick them up, load all of their “stuff” from the school year into the trunk, and we’d drive around with the car top down. “Can I interest anyone in an ice-cream cone to celebrate?” I’d ask, knowing full well I’d have two takers for ice-cream in no time. And just like the old Lynyrd Skynyrd tune, I’d tell the kids we were now “Free Birds,” ready to enjoy the summer any way we chose.

Back then I had a small side business. I finished my jobs early in the day so that I could often clear the afternoons for fun. We put a lot of miles on that old car. I purchased passes for the local pool and frequently took them swimming; we picnicked with friends and swam at beaches; we saw movies (The Sand Lot, Rocket Man); went to Summerfest (during the day because nights got kinda adult crazy); signed them up for baseball and cheered at most of their games… It was the time before they worked part-time jobs and before they had significant others… “Old days, good times I remember. Fun days, filled with simple pleasures…” (Song by ‘Chicago’) I’m not going to lie – by the time late August rolled around, I usually felt ready for school to begin, but by then we’d shared lots of fun summertime adventures.

Of course part-time jobs did start – in fact, Todd and I insisted on it as a part of life. And ‘significant others’ did join the mix – in fact, it’s normal and right for that too. Sometimes we included the others in on our family time, sometimes we did things alone; but those pure summer days of the Free Birds became fewer and farther between.

And I think that’s okay. Each stage of life has had its time and place. As I mentioned in my book (Five Fingers, Ten Toes) there were days as a young mother that I actually wished my time away. I’m not particularly proud of myself for that admission, but it is true. Then there were years, like I described earlier, that were full of fun. The kids were at delightful ages, full of good conversations and lots of laughs.

Eventually they grew up and went off to college and got married – and all of that was normal - right.

Now Todd and I are boaters, and we try to get away on our boat a few times every summer. We enjoy good food, a cocktail (or two) from time to time, and adult conversations that don’t revolve around baseball or swimming (as fun as those topics were!).

Do I miss ‘the good old days?’ Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. These days I’m actually trying to concentrate on living a bit more in the here and now…

But if I dare to dream about the future – well - who even KNOWS how we might be spending our summers down the road???  (Or with WHOM for that matter???  I better just focus on takin’ it day by day for now.)

But I’ll say this - I do hope that when Megan and Tony think back to their childhood, that they fondly remember me and the summers we spent as “Free Birds.”

Katie Kolberg Memmel is the author of the book, “Five Fingers, Ten Toes – A Mother’s Story of Raising a Child Born With a Limb Difference.” For more information, go to her website at www.katiekolbergmemmel.com