“When a Summer Day Could Last a Whole Week”

By Mark Morgan

Back when summers moved slower than a three-legged turtle in a tar pit, And we liked it that way. Summers stretched out long and syrupy, sweet as the sun tea steeping on the back porch, and twice as strong.

Kids didn’t stay inside back then — that was considered a medical emergency. We were outside from breakfast till dark, screamin’, hollerin’, riding bikes with no helmets, and playing tag like our lives had warranties. A whole neighborhood of kids could be located just by listening, because somebody was always yelling like they’d stepped barefoot on a Lego.

And Lord, do I miss that sound.

Kids today have to be reminded to "get some fresh air." We breathed so much fresh air our lungs qualified for veteran’s benefits.

Evenings sometimes we’d pile into a car made entirely out of metal, sweat, and hope, and head to Lake Hinkle where you could fish until the sun folded up and went home for the night. The catfish cages bobbed out there on the water like giant floating lunch boxes, full of whiskered monsters waiting for their turn at fame. We’d toss a line in and hope something down there was hungrier than we were.

Now there was that Saturday that was a treat. They would announce, “We're going to Fort Smith,” and you’d think they was taking us to Disney World. First stop: K-Mart.

Now listen—kids today don’t know what luxury is. You haven’t lived till you’ve walked out of K-Mart holding:

✅ a sub sandwich the size of your forearm,✅ a big greasy bag of popcorn,✅ and a blue-light special you didn’t need but felt spiritually drawn to.

That was a feast, son. That was living.

We shopped for bell-bottom jeans that could double as satellite dishes, leisure suits shinier than a preacher’s Cadillac, and yellow smiley-face buttons telling everybody to “Have a Nice Day!” Meanwhile, half the state smoked like they were trying to keep the mosquito population down. Every house had ashtrays big enough to bathe a toddler in.

Waldron is a dry county, and it showed. The grocery aisles had more sweet tea than the Mississippi River, and the fanciest drink you could buy was grape soda in a glass bottle. Folks acted like lemonade was high society. If someone showed up with peach punch, the whole neighborhood thought they were living large.

We didn’t know what “happy hour” meant. Our version was a cold Dr Pepper after mowing the yard.

The county was dry, but our sense of humor sure wasn’t.

“Tornadoes didn’t give warnings back then, they didn’t bother with sirens. They just showed up uninvited, like a relative who heard you were making homemade ice cream.”

Our fruit cellar doubled as a tornado shelter, though it never did either job real well. The minute you opened the door, you got hit with a smell so strong it could pickle your eyebrows. Jars of peaches lined the walls like spectators, and spiders big enough to pay property taxes guarded every corner. When the wind picked up, that cellar shook harder than a screen door in a hailstorm. We always said if a twister ever hit full-force, that shelter wouldn’t stop it one bit… but it might slow it down long enough for the tornado to grab a snack.

We didn’t have smartphones, Wi-Fi, or apps. We had neighbors, lightning bugs, and the kind of freedom that came with “Be home when the streetlights come on.” If you weren’t home by then, every adult in a three-block radius formed a search party. Then you got grounded by all of them, one right after the other.

Life was simple.Life was loud.Life was good.

People say those were different times.I say those were better times. As Grandpa used to say,“Life don’t need to be fancy to be good — it just needs to be lived.”

And lived, we did…so much that half our memories smell like creek water, bug spray, and a screen door that never shut right. Childhood wasn’t perfect, but it sure was a whole lot more fun than charging a phone every night.

You don’t need Wi-Fi, fancy outfits, or a phone glued to your hand to make a childhood worth remembering. You just need fresh air, a little imagination, and the nerve to climb a fence you probably shouldn’t.

Grandpa always said,

“Life ain’t perfect, but it sure don’t need to be complicated.”

“If you can’t find joy in the simple things, you’re lookin’ in the wrong direction.”

So here’s the truth wrapped in a funny old saying:

“Happiness grows best in plain dirt, not potting soil from the mall.”

Those days may be gone, but the lesson’s still good:

Live honest.

Laugh loud.

Take your time.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t wait for streetlights to tell you when to go home.