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Quite often I have thought about the fun times we had in our childhood during the summer. I fondly recall how sim- ple and pure things were at certain times. The splendor of long summers, outdoor games played to all hours of the night, and using our imagination to create games and things to do. Youth league baseball was competitive, but at the same time, it was a time to enjoy just being out of school. Those wonderful memories conjure up a time that will always be special because of the people. I remember going back to school after Labor Day, not in August. We had a full three months of summer. Maybe it was because we didn’t have air conditioned schools? Or we didn’t have all the extended “breaks” present in our schools today? Thanksgiving was only Thursday and Fri- day off back then. Mardi Gras? No one cared about that craziness. Maybe the required days for students and teachers were less back then? Whatever the reason or reasons, we loved the summer break or as it was often referred to ‘summer vacation’. What we liked about long summers the most was just that; they were long. And the days were long too. Playing “kick the can” a.k.a ‘a special kind of hide and seek’ right after sunset was the best. Hiding behind a tree, under an old car hood, laying hori- zontal in tall grass, hiding in the fig trees, or in a big garbage can. We played for hours on end, and this was after playing baseball or wiffle ball for the entire after- noon. We had neighborhood activities that don’t appear to be prevalent in today’s world. Video games, smart phones, computers….well, they were nowhere to be found. We invented things to do to have fun in a non-stop fashion. My nephews, Todd and Russ, and I played golf a lot. No, not at the country club on a real course. We would use holly balls as we called them. They would come from trees on our property and were round with very rough edges. Once they dried, they fell to the ground and we would go through a few dozen to find just the right one for hardness and shape. The harder the holly ball, the further it would travel when hit. We would find limbs from the pecan trees, oak trees, or fig trees to break or bend to as near the shape and angle of a golf club as possible. Prepa- ration was critical in getting the right ‘clubs’. We would then layout a course with about three holes. We didn’t have pars, bogeys, or any of those real golf terms for scoring. We didn’t have eagles either, but occasionally a buzzard may fly over “the course” fresh from dining on nearby Interstate 59. The more we played, the better our gear became as we became the recipient of ‘manufactured’ clubs made from long wooden dowels and 2x2 remnants of lumber. This changed the way we played as far as how far we could hit them. In golfer terms, our ‘long game’ got better real quick. We three would play for hours and you would have thought we were play- ing a round at Augusta National with the enjoyment we had. Way before hockey became a spectator sport in the south with the expansion of the National Hockey League, we played hockey ourselves. We would get old brooms (hockey sticks), jar lids (the puck), garbage can lids (goalie pad), baseball glove (goalie mitt), and sawhorses (the goals). We would setup the ‘goals’ on a concrete slab beside the house about 12 feet by 50 feet. We had some battles. Toby Frierson, the Billingsley boys (Bob and James Orie), and Joey Fleming were regulars in our arena of fun and the ‘check- ing’ was as vicious as a real NHL game. We would at times run with the wind to catch leaves falling from the pecan trees whenever the wind gusted. We were never bored. We enjoyed being outside and made the most of it. We were content with life all sum- mer. I also have fond memories of playing youth baseball. We had some great men who knew baseball and shared that knowledge across decades. More importantly they gave their time and tried to give us the best opportunity avail- able. J.J. Holcomb and Gary Johnson put in so much time and effort through the Picayune YMCA which or- ganized and ran the leagues. 12 SOUTHERN SENIOR MAGAZINE | Summer 2023 The Best of Times Were Every Summer By: Carey Meitzler