boys of summer

There is silence as we eat lunch in the abandoned park in Plum Creek.  All the kids in the neighborhood who go to public school are sitting in classrooms just a few hundred yards away. Home schoolers are safely tucked inside their homes, I assume.

That just leaves us City School kids, eating fried chicken and wondering if our uniforms will fit. 

The dog days of summer, the august month of dry heat and bitter dust in the place of where green gardens grew in the spring.  I hate it.  It depresses me, I won't lie to you.

But then I look at the tanned, freckled faces sitting across from me, with sun-bleached blonde hair, and ocean blue eyes that smile contentment and I count 2 of my biggest blessings.

Memories of the summer months flash through my mind; our boys in the surf with their boogie boards, camping, fishing, tubing, caving, hiking, biking.  Video making, notebooks filled with cartoons.  The watching (read dancing) of High School Musical 3 that we will keep a secret. 

Monopoly, yahtzee, spoons.  The Smith Bros. daily comic shack we subscribed to, Syd's candy shop, Ben's snowcone shop.  Syd's library with fiendishly high overdue book fees.  "I'm not paying a dime for an overdue Beezus and Ramona!" heard more than once in the hallways.  All big moneymakers.  We didn't hit one theme park this summer and I'm kind of proud of that.   Theme dinners at the Gilliams, cheer lessons at the Penningtons, lifegroup at the Mohons. Goofiness with Jakes. 

The summer has flown by, even in it's locust-killing, mind-sucking oppressive heat.  My boys seem to have each grown a foot each this summer, thanks to 10-12 hours of sleep a night.  And a good share of pancakes and beef jerky.

Boys who used to spend their summers playing in the sprinkler in swim diapers, are now kayaking, wanting to find rapids. 

Boys with hands as big, and bigger than mine.

Boys who give me rocks from trails and red suckers they got from the bank teller as presents. Boys who draw me pictures of Captain America.  

I don't want them to grow up.  I don't really want to take them back to school either.  It seems like there is still more that needs to be done this summer.  

But hope abides!  One more day of freedom.

River fountains splash joy, cooling God's city,

this sacred haunt of the Most High.

God lives here, the streets are safe,

God at your service from the crack of dawn.

Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,

but Earth does anything he says.

Psalm 46: 4-6 (The Message)