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Wednesday

"Go Play!" Thinking back to summer vacation...

It's that time of year --summer vacation-- and the children are out in full force! Okay maybe not in full force thanks to all these gaming systems nowadays. Summer vacation usually makes me have a few flashbacks like spending summer time down grandma's house in Pittsburgh during the eighties.

I heard "go play" often, because it was too hot for everyone to be in the same house together. That's right, the same house even being in a different room sometimes was too crowded because you best believe someone was going to come in and crowd you out with their noise whether turning on the TV or talking loud on the telephone! Take for example, you are in the kitchen helping yourself to something in the fridge and dare you forget to wash your hands, not only were you going to get cussed out for not washing your "nasty hands" but you were going to be told to, "Get on outta here...didn't I say go play!" So off you went to play jump rope, hopscotch, freeze tag, bike ride, play jacks, or (if your parents had a little money to spend) you were at your local amusement park or a cookout.

I needed to "go play," because I think my folks woke up with attitudes! They could have had a bad dream, still mad about what happened the night before, or what they still had to do that morning or night. I learned to get lost, because I didn't want to be accused of anything, be cussed out, or given something to do that I didn't want to do. So while I'm told to, "Go play!" I'm also called back to do something. One summer, my dad had bought a three-story apartment complex and told my sister (who was only about 7) and I (about 11 at the time) to help more often. We were seriously treated like maintenance people. We were expected to coordinate the tools he needed, clean up afterward, bring supplies to him, and whatever else he needed to complete a project. He wasn't a professional so any task he did took all day and sometimes all night. I can't tell you how many times we saw the sunset working with him while listening throughout the day to the neighborhood children outside laughing. I admit I was jealous. When we finally got to go somewhere it was usually our annual visit to a local amusement park or to see his folks down south who talked slow and worked in fields. The bulk of the summer was spent either watching TV or watching someone else watch TV until I became a teen and got smart -- sign up for summer programs that required leaving home!

Anyway, there were those times when summers got exciting with gunshots fired in the background while staying in the hood with grandma. "Someone doing something they wasn't suppose to" was all I heard when I asked, "Why?" Sometimes it became difficult to "go play" when the neighborhood was shook by a fire, a death or someone's child dying. Sometimes "go play" was in the next room and you know you had to be quiet, because if you didn't there was going to be some drama in a hot house (no air conditioning) and if you know anything about black folks, you know being hot puts us in a bad mood! American blacks ain't accustomed to Africa -- okay!?

Anyway while we are playing and taking a break here and there to drink cherry or grape Koolaid, eat a sandwich, or whatever was given to you (oftentimes there was no choice if grandma ate neckbones, black-eyed peas, and cornbread or some other food that wasn't "fun" that's what you ate or "don't eat then!") adults was cussing and fussing about something or laughing usually about what someone looked like. The summertime always brought out made up clowns with cellulite thighs, mountains for butts, ashy feet, and all sorts of weird smells covered up with some cheap perfume or cologne. While the adults talked about "getting your butt in the tub and soakin," I was thinking, "I hope you plan on getting your stanky butt in the tub too!"

Oh those summer, summer time memories....

Nicholl McGuire is the author of Laboring to Love Myself.
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African American Planet: Relationships, Education, Products & Lifestyle by Nicholl McGuire is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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