Summer as a child

[Kayelle]

It is always interesting to see what children remember. The one thing that I notice in almost every response is that it did not take much money, it is about family, friends, imagination and a chance to be independent in some small way.

I noticed that too Bea. In addition, all the above experiences were in the days when it was common for us to feel the freedom of independence and both parents and children believed the Boogie man was just a fable. Now days the Boogie man has been proved to be real, although maybe he always was. Parents now need to keep children indoors for fear they will be taken, and resort to having supervised "play dates". Now days parents would be arrested for child endangerment if they heard what we heard and told their kids on a summer morning to be sure to be home before dark. Sad these kids will never have that freedom.

 

[Addie]

The only money spent by my parents was on the weekly Movies, special tickets that lasted all summer and a dollar each for movie treats. Everything else was free or we paid for it ourselves, I started babysitting when I was 12.

We collected empty soda or milk bottles and cashed them in. The milk bottles gave a nickel each and the soda was worth three cents each. Sometimes if the change from running to the store for my mother was four cents or less, I was allowed to keep it. I remember one time when I had managed to save a whole fifty cents. I ran to Jim's Variety store and turned all the change in for a whole fifty cent piece. I felt so rich.

 

[Aunt Bea]

We collected empty soda or milk bottles and cashed them in. The milk bottles gave a nickel each and the soda was worth three cents each. Sometimes if the change from running to the store for my mother was four cents or less, I was allowed to keep it. I remember one time when I had managed to save a whole fifty cents. I ran to Jim's Variety store and turned all the change in for a whole fifty cent piece. I felt so rich.

We used to get two cents for the individual soda and beer bottles, five cents for the quarts and picnics. We would walk into the village, about a mile from our house. A couple of us would be on each side of the road with a burlap sack, shouting back and forth each time we found a bottle. We also found other treasures that we would hide and pickup on the way home. I think the Grocer hated us because we brought in so many odd and dirty bottles, he always got most of the money back before we left.

 

[pacanis]

I too took empty bottles to the local small market for a deposit. I guess you would call it a convenience store, because it had a very limited amount of everything. I did not collect bottles though. Back then, at least in the areas I was allowed to travel, there weren't any roadside bottles and such. I think we just hit up the neighbors and I think they must have figured it was easier to give their empty coke bottles to the neighborhood kids than it was to take them back to the store themselves. I remember taking the money and buying long, plastic pixie sticks and a bag of navy beans

And talk about a cheap toy. One neighbor would give us kids plastic bags filled with water that we called goldfish and would walk around with And we would also take a long piece of string, tie one end to a small 8" or so stick and the other to a long pole sized stick and pretend to fish
At least we didn't suffer from video game thumb

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Half of babysitting money and "found" money like bottle deposits went into our savings accounts. The other half was ours to spend as we wished. I saved one summer for a ten speed bike, got it just in time for school...no more school bus on nice days.

At 13, I could make $100 a weekend plus extra from tips babysitting for my Dad's friends who would hire me for events where there were up to 10 kids. Weekend long bridge games, skiing & snowmobiling weekends. These same friends hired me in later years to cater their dinner parties...