Summer is finally here, and although we are excited (unlike some people), the season just doesn’t feel like it used to. Gone are the times when we could unabashedly run through the fountain at the local town center. Flying down the Slip ‘n Slide guilt- and injury-free without the context or liquid courage provided by alcohol? Not an option. However, we can be nostalgic for those times. So here is a long list of just about all the summer activities we wish we could be doing right now instead of being cooped up in the office. Join us on our trip and receive what Don Draper would call, “…the pain from an old wound. A twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.”
1. Chasing the ice cream truck down the street. Now the ice cream trucks we see are always parked.
2. Building mediocre sand castles that were inevitably trampled.
3. Tie-dyeing shirts in the backyard and then proudly wearing them.
4. Flinging our bodies down the aforementioned Slip ‘n Slide, and winding up in the grass.
5. Camping with the parents — who did all of the hard work of setting everything up.
6. Never yelling “Polo!” quite when we were supposed to.
7. Flying kites.
8. Escaping to a tree house.
9. Skateboarding/roller-blading without being good at it or caring if we fell.
10. Attending arts and crafts fairs without irony.
11. Hopscotch.
12. Jumping rope without considering it exercise.
13. The real four square.
14. Catching fireflies in jars.
15. Flashlight tag in the backyard.
16. Capture the flag.
17. Riding on a “zip-line.”
18. Jumping in fountains without the threat of arrest.
19. Not drinking at baseball games.
20. Attempting to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for something that, looking back, was extremely silly.
21. Getting free stuff for good grades.
22. Skipping rocks.
23. Racing bikes that had more than one gear.
24. Drawing our “masterpiece” with chalk on the sidewalk.
25. Family vacations.
26. Rolling Tonka trucks across the sandbox.
27. Jumping out of swings at the playground.
28. Neon-colored sunscreen.
29. Spitting watermelon seeds as far as possible.
30. Inventing a new sport that had probably been “invented” thousands of times already.
31. Our first real dive.
32. Body surfing non-scary waves.
33. Riding the mini roller-coasters that we no longer fit in.
34. Beach-themed coloring books.
35. Playing “punch buggy” on road trips.
36. Eating Popsicles sans sexual suggestion.
37. Climbing trees, which is kind of painful as an adult.
38. Selling lemonade.
39. Being a part of neighborhood garage sales.
40. Kool-Aid mustaches.
41. Getting to choose who are the “ducks” and who is the “goose.”
42. Happily dancing to bad cover bands.
43. Riding around and around on the Merry-Go-Round before we read Catcher in the Rye.
44. Having to remain frozen until our best friend tagged us back into the game.
45. Filling a bottle with different colors of sand and calling it art.
46. Wearing a bucket hat simply to keep out the sun.
47. Blowing awesome soap bubbles in public.
48. Staying at the bottom of the pool longer than all of the other kids.
49. Believing we could dig a hole to China.
50. WATER GUNS!
Let us know in the comments if we forgot your once-upon-a-time favorite summer activity.