Summer Nights

We have been busy running our kids to softball and baseball practices and games in the past several weeks. Every Monday through Thursday there is at least one game. With three kids, Eric and I are out-numbered, and figuring out a plan to get each kid where they need to be becomes a challenge at times. Trying to schedule a time for us to eat supper together as a family is difficult too. I know our family is not the only one in this situation. And the fun of watching our kids play ball is well worth all the running and we do.

It sure is different than what summer nights were like growing up on the farm. As farm kids, we never played any sports during the summer (or any time of year for that matter). During haying season, we would unload hay well into evening chore time. This pushed chores back later, which in turn pushed supper even later. There were many summer nights when we ate supper at 8:30 or 9:00 pm. I'm sure my mom never knew what time to have supper ready.

I do see some things from the summer nights of my childhood have carried over into the summer nights of our kids lives. Our kids join in with the neighbors to play Capture the Flag or Night Games. When we were kids, we Betz kids loved to play Hope To See The Ghost Tonight when it got dark outside. I can still hear, "One o'clock, two o'clock....midnight, moonlight, starlight, hope to see the ghost tonight." There were many dark and spooky places to hide on the farm. Just thinking about it makes my heart beat a little faster. Another favorite game of ours was one that most people call Kick The Can. The Betz kids were a bit more creative in their name for this game. I'm not sure where our original name of Tippy, Tippy, Tin Can came from, but I know that after calling it that for quite some time, we changed the name. One night, the can we used for the game was a baked bean can. Someone (I think Charlie) then changed the name of the game to Tippy, Tippy, Fart Can! That name stuck for the rest of childhood.

As we played these games, Mother and Daddy would often sit on the front step of the house with a huge bowl of popcorn. Of course this was before the time of microwave popcorn (or even microwaves) or air poppers. We made the popcorn the old fashioned way: a pan on the stove with oil and popcorn kernals. You covered the pan and as soon as you heard a kernal pop, you shook the pan like crazy until all popping stopped. Then of course we drenched the popcorn with melted butter and salt. Yum!

The nights of playing games and having popcorn on the front steps are some of my favorite childhood memories. In my mind, we did this almost every night. When I think back realistically, I know that it probably wasn't nearly that often. Perhaps this shows how much those nights meant to me.

Sunday nights in the summer were different. After supper, Mother and Daddy loved to go for their Sunday evening drive. I remember Mike and I loved to tag along. Honestly, we hated the actual drive part. We had an ulterior motive: the root beer stand. Mike and I would sit in the back seat of the car and complain about how long the ride was taking. Dusty gravel roads that went by the farms of people we didn't know held no interest for us. But the possibility of getting root beer was worth the agony of enduring the Sunday evening drive. The A&W Root Beer Stand stood where the Kwik Trip in Caledonia now stands. A couple times during each summer, Mother and Daddy would take us there for supper. Maybe we led a sheltered childhood or maybe things were just different back then, but to us supper at the rootbeer stand was a treat. We'd park the car right next to a board that had the menu listed. When we were ready to order, we pushed a button that turned on a light on our board. That magically made our waitress appear to take our order. After much complaining that our food was taking forever, the same waitress would carry out a tray with our food and drinks. She would hang it on the driver's window of the car. Our drinks came in A&W mugs made of real glass. I remember when we actually ate supper there, I always ordered the orange drink. When we were done eating, we pushed another button on the menu board which alerted the waitress to come and pick up our tray. What clever inventions the 1970's had.

But on Sunday evening drives, it was root beer we craved. It always seemed that near the end of the drive, our car always approached Caledonia. When we were a couple blocks aways from the root beer stand, Mike and I would start saying, "Blink, blink, blink, blink....." This was our way of letting Mother and Daddy know that we would really like to stop for root beer, so they should start signaling their intent to turn into the root beer stand. As if they didn't already know that was the only reason we even rode along with them. I don't remember them ever not stopping, but still, each time it seemed like a real possibility that they wouldn't. The best part of getting root beer on those Sunday nights was the amount we got. On those nights, we didn't use the outdoor menu board and get glasses of root beer. Instead, Mother or Daddy would go inside with a glass gallon bottle and have it filled. We would then take it back to the farm where everyone enjoyed a glass of root beer or even a root beer float. There was one Sunday night root beer run that I will never forget. As we walked in the door of the farm house, someone set the gallon full of root beer on the counter. As soon as it touched the counter, the bottle shattered. Sticky root beer and glass covered the counter and floor. It appeared our night was ruined. But never fear, someone was sent back to A&W to get another gallon while the rest of us stayed home and cleaned up the sticky mess. As I recall, the root beer stand gave us a free gallon of root beer and told us that we should open the bottle slightly in the car to let some of the pressure escape. They thought the pressure caused the bottle to burst when it touched the counter. It seems to me that shortly after that, we started getting our root beer in plastic bottles.

As an adult, whenever I've looked back and remembered those Sunday evening drives, I always think that Mike and I must have annoyed the heck out of Mother and Daddy with our insistent "blink, blink, blink". But this time, another thought ocurred to me. Maybe they took us along on the ride so that they had an excuse to stop at the A&W.  Maybe the root beer stand was their plan all along. Maybe they loved root beer as much as we did. Maybe they would have turned into the root beer stand even without our subtle hint of "blink, blink, blink."

These days, our kids beg for us to take them to Dairy Queen or other ice cream shops. Maybe we'll have to take a Sunday evening drive and buy some root beer. Maybe after that they can play a game of Tippy, Tippy Fart Can.