One of Those Nights...

The cicadas in the trees are whining so loud I can't hear the cars go by on the road.
It is so warm and humid that there is a late-day haze over the corn fields in rural Indiana.
I took a birthday shopping trip to the Meijer store in Mooresville by way of the country roads this evening...and it reminded me so much of times on the farm in Illinois when I was a kid. It was August. It was hot. It was still summer vacation from school. Life was good!

My mother said I was allergic to soap. She had a tough time getting me to take a bath. "Wash your hands for supper." "They aren't dirty!" Yet, when I finally DID wash my hands, the brownish water went down the drain. Sometimes, there was a dirty ring around my neck not half as big as the dirty ring I left behind in the bath tub! Heck, I was playing! There was no time to stay clean!

And--here was the greatest insult of all--my bedtime came before it was even dark outside! I complained bitterly about that. I only came inside when it got dark outside!

When I was in second grade in Danville, IL, my cousin Sandy (male) came to visit. He had a bicycle with training wheels on it. I figured out how to ride on that. Then, when he left, we had a big bike that I rode every chance I got. I was barreling around a corner on the gravel road near the house. The bike slid on the gravel, and so did I. I had a huge road burn that went from the side of my hip (buttocks) all the way down my thigh and calf. I went limping and crying home. That evening, Mom plunked me in the bathtub. Ouch!!! It burned like crazy!

Speaking of burning like crazy, do you remember first aid in the 50s? Remember tincture of iodine, mercurochrome, and merthiolate? In my childhood, they were used to dab on wounds as an antiseptive. They stung like crazy!! No one uses them anymore. Guess why? The iodine was mixed with alcohol. (No wonder it stung!) The other two contained mercury. It's a wonder my generation survived first aid! (This is the same generation that was given butter for burns...) We don't torture our kids anymore. Heck, even circumcision for male babies is only 56% as a national average... And episiotomies--once considered necessary for the healthy sex life of a mother--is down to 40%. (I'm a little surprised that it is still that high.)

I have strayed far from the original topic of this post, which was to be how much this evening reminded me of the carefree late-summer days of my youth. I hope to God that my grandchilren remember their days here that way!