Special shout-out to my writing friend,
Marsha R. West.
She put on my thinking cap for summer end.
What are you favorite/not so favorite summer time ends?
Marsha mentioned her first summer job and memories flooded back.
1st summer a bit over 16 and I went to work for Leonard’s (now Dillards) in the cosmetic department.
Three strong memories:
1) All women department – even in the men’s cologne.
2) Old-styled cash registers – counting change a requirement (loads of folks used cash for purchases. At least once a shift, I’d get some lady who dumped all her change on the glass counter-top and counted pennies/nickels/dimes until she made up the odd amount.)
OLD fashioned CC machines: remember the card swipers? No, not where you ran your card through the side of the POS machine. Nope, OLD-SCHOOL. Hand over your credit card, the sales person placed it on a ‘flatbed’ card swipe, loaded a 3-ply form on top, physically swipe flatbed arm over the card to make an imprint on the form, then fed the form fed through a slot in the old-styled cash register, price was entered, last four on card were entered, click amount, click credit, click VISA, MasterCard, AMX, click total, then if the stars lined up right it all went through. What could go wrong with this system? Everything. However, the good news? We weren’t inter-linked to the internet so as long as the store had power we could conduct those sales.
3) I came home smelling wonderful EVERY day. Always some new fragrance to try. Because the senior sales reps knew that young women wearing their fragrances were more likely to reel in men looking for a last-minute wife or girlfriend gift. I had loads of samples.
Heat – hours and hours of it.
Texas girl, remember.
Asphalt so hot that the tar bubbled in street cracks. (When we were little and constantly barefoot, my feet were tougher than the odd ‘tennie shoes’ my mom made me wear.) I wore Sunday shoes – white patent leather – that my dad had to buff out every Sunday morning because I couldn’t walk without scuffing my shoes, sandals for the beach and occasional trip to the discount store, tennis shoes (Ked’s) for the sticker fields that were the cut-through to the local 7-11. On the street, in the yard, even biking, we went barefoot. When they say shoe-leather tough, we really had the feet for it.
We really did fry an egg on the sidewalk.
Slip-N-Slides. It took until mid-October before the Slip-N-Slide rut in my parents’ front yard finally disappeared. Again, Texas girl – grass stays green a long time here.
Oh, but ours didn't come with a built-in bumper cushion. You stopped when you slid on the grass. Many a swimsuit turned permanently green.
Skateboards. Not high dollar durable fiberglass with titanium wheels. Not quite so elaborate. My dad cut out an oval from dated, stained plywood, sanded it down, drilled holes and connected a metal skate to the bottom, attached a rope through a hole in the front and off I went. From the ages of seven until . . . the ten-speed took precedence, I constantly rode the skateboard. Skinned knees, banged-up toes (no shoes, remember), tan lines from shorts and tanktops, freckles and life was wonderful.
Is it any wonder that we never wanted summer to end?
Did 100° heat keep us inside?
Absolutely not. There were sno-cones to eat; Slip-n-Slide contests; paths to explore; lemonade stands to build and man; dogs to walk and occasionally chase; hide-n-go-seek after dark, and fireflies to capture.
Be inside?
Not on a double-dog-dare.
