ON A HOT SUMMER DAY IN AUGUST

It is fitting on this last day of August 2009, when the temperature is guaranteed to be 103+, to post a little picture of how kids 65+ years ago beat the heat.

My sister and I were just little twerps - I was probably 8 and she 6 - when this snapshot was taken. We were living in a rented house in Long Beach, and this side yard was perfect for all kinds of kiddie stuff. On hot days mother would set the sprinkler up for us to run through, or sit on, or hold over our heads as if we were taking showers. We had only bathtubs in the house, so pretending we had a shower was always one of the first things we did.

These were the days when polio was still a damaging disease that children caught, and mother always monitored us carefully. She kept us in bathing caps so our wet hair wouldn't cause us to take a cold. She always stood nearby with big towels, and at the first sight of a shiver or lips turning blue, we got bundled up and sent into the house. In Long Beach an afternoon sea breeze always came up, cooling the city, and that was why mother always made sure we were out of the sprinklers long before we could get chilled.

That side yard was also good for tent-making later in the year when the weather wasn't so hot. Mother would string a rope from the picket fence on the property line to a big oleander tree that was near the side of the house. Over that rope she would drape a blanket and weight the corners with all manners of heavy objects she could round up, making us a fine tent. Ginnie Lou and I used to bring our paper-dolls out and we would spend hours imagining and acting out the lives our paperdolls led. Mother always reminded us that the tent was for our use only, and that neighbor children were not to be invited into it. And like a wise mother, she always admonished us that we were not to play "doctor."

Jump-rope, jacks, hopscotch, tea parties, jigsaw puzzles, board games, book-reading -- along with the sprinklers and tents -- these were the kinds of things we played with in those days to entertain ourselves. We had interactive friends, not interactive electronics.

I remember those days like they happened yesterday. So much of what I remember is because my mother always had a camera in her hand and she made sure as I grew up I always had one in my hand too. The pictures bring back clearly a memory of the times of my childhood, and even the little insignificant events can be worth a blog or two to share with others who grew up in that much simpler time.