THE FRONT PORCH: The Magic of Summer

By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV

These last two weeks have been scorchers, with the temperature reaching the mid-90s regularly. Us mountain folk aren’t used to sustained summer heat like that!

It has given us all something to talk about, for sure, but it has also taken me back to childhood. I’ve thought of all the fun I had during the summers off from school.

Spending the night with grandparents…going fishing…family reunions…a cooler full of popsicles…heading over to friend’s houses…summer was a magical time, when anything seemed possible.

At one point in my childhood, our family lived about a mile from the baseball fields near Lewisburg Elementary School. For a few summers, my friends and I would walk to the field, play baseball all morning, use the payphone at lunchtime to call Pizza Hut for a delivery, and then hit the fields again in the afternoon.

We had no idea how fortunate we were, until we were old enough to work. Then, we longed for those days on the diamond while we toiled away in the heat.

There is a magic in the summer air of Appalachia. Lightning bugs and purple skies. Thick fog and katydid songs. Squeaking front doors that open and shut a thousand times a day as kids float in and out of the house, going on their next adventure.

What are your best summer memories? How did they shape you into the person you have become? What summer traditions are you passing onto your kids? Which new ones have you discovered? Let us know in the comments on social media!

And may the magic of summer visit you again this year.