The Joys of Summer

"Have a good summer"! Can you believe that's what the bus driver said to me this morning as she was picking up my kids on the last day of school. What is she nuts, have a good summer, yeah did she even know who she was talking too. Now if I were boarding a plane to Hawaii or England maybe she could say that, but summer vacation with 11 kids.....please pray for me.
It's not like when I was a kid, we found things to do. We were never board, never sat in the house whining or my parents found something for us to do. Like clean your room, do the dishes, match socks or worst yet read a book. We didn't have Wii, PS1,2 or 3, there was no cable T.V. nor did we have a computer. The only thing we had was an imagination and a bike and for a few summers we got to play on the soap box derby car my dad and brother made after the race was done.
So one summer my brother Carl and his friends decided they wanted a bicycle for 2. So they took 2 of our bikes removed the front tire from one and hooked the front forks on the back of the other bike. A bicycle built for 2 with 3 wheels. Now that was using your imagination.
 I remember the summer they were building new houses in the beloved field behind our home, the field where we played all the time. We needed something to do, so we asked the builder if we could have some scrap wood to build a fort. He said yes anything in a pile we could take after they were done work for the day. They sure were surprised the next morning to see what a great job we had done on our fort. It was made from their prime plywood and 2x4's. Hey it was in a pile, a nice stacked neat pile but a pile. He was talking to kids he needed to be more specific.
On hot summer days they would have open swim at the high school. So we would grab our swim suits, towels, 25 cents and walk, yes walk to the high school to swim. In order to swim in the deep end and jump off the diving board you had to swim the width of the pool and back. Those were the days.
In the evenings most of the neighborhood kids would gather at our house for a game of kick the can. We lived on a 3 house block so it worked. This was the only time we could leave our yard after the street light came on.
Then there was the time Carl and I decided to dance on the neighbors work car. Man did we get in trouble. The guy came home for lunch so while he was eating we were dancing. Mom told us to apologize, Carl did but I would not. I had taken dance lessons and thought I was pretty good so I was not apologizing for my wonderful talent. He got to go back outside to play, I had to spend the rest of the day in my room. Did I mention his work car was a police cruiser? OK scrap that one.
I remember the time Carl and I, we were probably 6 and 7, decided to follow the neighbor boys on an adventure, we ended up coming home in a police cruiser. Their adventure was breaking into a vacant house. OK scrap this one too.
Anyway the kids today feel the need to be constantly entertained, what ever happened to using your imagination? I used mine and look how well I turned out!!