Every summer, I went exploring on my bike (and honestly found some unbelievably cool stuff to do), hung out in the library or checked books and albums out of the library and went to Chuck E. Cheese, watched cable tv till all hours, wrote stories, poems, and plays, and had to go on family vacation trips for a little while, got to lie in bed and read or watch tv until I got tired of it, and make food for my younger siblings, then I was on my own again. Friends and I would sneak into movies, walk around the mall, and stay on the phone talking about the books and movies we were reading/watching for hours. A bunch of years, I and a couple friends would pack our bikes and have a “friends’ vacation” of our own in different places for a day or two. Around grade 4 or 5, I bought an army surplus backpack (that thing was indestructible; I still have it packed away somewhere) and I kept a couple of books, a notebook or two, a blanket from an airplane that I stole, often a beach towel (unless I had too much else in there) and some food in in all the time; by the time I turned 12, I kept cassette tapes and my Walkman in there, and would listen to audio lectures or other stuff (and music) on my Walkman as I rode my bike around if I was alone. And the cool thing was that the backpack doubled as a kind of chair back/pillow, so a lot of times I would get up really early, leave breakfast for the kids (Carnation Breakfast Bars and instructions on how to pour a glass of milk without spilling it), and bike to a cemetery and go all the way to the back where there was a path that led to a part of the lakefront down the road from the cemetery that had an open air pavilion with a grill and everything and read and/or write for hours and then take a nap (barely anyone ever used that pavilion because it was too far away from the other pavilions). I also brought my mom’s high-powered, fancy binoculars in a case just to see stuff like things across the lake and try to draw them (I also carried a sketch book and pastels/charcoal plus a can of Aquanet for fixative. Being in that pavilion when it was raining is still amongst some of my favourite memories. And I’d occasionally go by an arcade or pizza place and watch mostly guys playing video games (I occasionally played if I had money, but I wasn’t skilled enough to get far in most video games, so I’d watch other people’s progress in games like Dragon’s Lair (which was too expensive anyway). A lot of times, I’d run into friends and we’d pool our money and get a slice of pizza and a drink and share it while we played or watched video games — kind of like the 1970s–1980s version of watching a Let’s Play, lol.

And through all of this, I ran into some pretty cool people, like the time I went to my pavilion the cemetery way and was kind of surprised and disappointed that a family had already taken my pavilion and were cooking and watching their kids play; I asked if I could just have one table and benches at the far end, and for whatever reason, the family invited me to hang out with them and gave me food and let me eat a huge lunch with them for watching their kids (I’d rolled up my jeans and went wading with their youngest daughter and finally just took off my jeans and over shirt and got in the lake to teach her how to swim — it worked; she was a great little swimmer once she got the hang of it). I still remember that she was about four and her name was Keely. I hope she has had a great life, because she was a really sweet kid. Another time, I was alone in my pavilion, just reading and thinking, and a lady (who I guess was the mom of the family at another pavilion) came over and gave me a plate of their food and a book.

And I also met a LOT of adults who were surprisingly cool and good to me, like the time I got to go into some special events day at the Science Centre; my goal that day had been to sneak in, but there was some huge group there already and one of the teachers or chaperones or whoever started talking with me outside as I was about to leave, and he let me pretend to be in their group and get into the Science Centre for free, and I got to follow the group and hear some really interesting lectures from the docents that I took notes about, and I also got free lunch with the group because I was invited if I’d share with the kids why I was taking notes and what I planned to do to find out more about the stuff we saw, like how light scatters and other things at the Science Centre. I am not sure why, but I got a lot of free admission to things and free food. Maybe I looked poor and in need of culture, lol.

Everyone at the downtown library and the satellite library by my house knew me, and a lot of the librarians would actually save stuff for me when I was next in because they had a feeling I’d love some particular book or something. And whether I was alone or with friends, we’d check pay phones and newspaper vending machines (and even the coin machines at the laundromat) for extra money (if you aren’t Gen X, you may not realise how much money ended up let behind back then; you could easily end up with a couple dollars if you were diligent about checking every one).

I also biked up to the university and sat in on classes or lectures sometimes, and I don’t think their Art Department had a single event that I (and sometimes friends) would turn up for; one of my favourites was when they had some astronomer or astrophysicist give a two-hour lecture on his work and then shows us visuals of the work he did; it was absolutely fascinating. Other times, might have fallen asleep because the topic or speaker were really dry, but 🤷🏻‍♀️ nap time yay, I guess. And in all the years I did that, nobody ever had a problem with me just joining things. I don’t think I was ever mistaken for a college student or whatever group, but I realised that doing things like taking notes and drawing things can really justify your existence at a lot of events, and while you had to be a little cautious about overly-friendly men, usually women were okay and would ignore you or just be nice to be nice. And a LOT of professionals were very willing to sit and talk with you about their work, like the one time I sat near a phone repair guy while he was working and learnt a TON about how our phone system worked (phone employees back then were actually incredibly helpful and seemed to enjoy what they did; I had one technician talk to me on the phone for a long time (I was home), explaining how trunk lines work and phone numbers, snd all kinds of things.

I also did take care of my younger siblings, but they were often in some camp during the summer for a few weeks. And I did have regular Job’s Daughter’s meetings for a long while, but in the summer those were my two biggest obligations.

And I also had a ton of time to play with things like phones, the television, radios, and stuff like that. Oh! And I was about 10–12 when I first started going out to our airport (this was a long time before TSA) and eventually that became a fun hangout spot for me and some friends.

So no — I didn’t hate summer at all; I loved it, in fact. What I hated was the school year when I had to do what teachers wanted me to do, I had to show up every day (granted, I skipped school a lot to do things like catch a particularly interesting guest on Donahue or something), but I greatly preferred to just run around myself and explore.