As a Child

I remember being so frustrated when my Mom would call us kids in for the evening, this time of year, when the sun still clearly stated "daylight=play". Past our backyard, we had a "cul-de-sac', which we Okie kids called "the circle", and that's where we kids all gathered of an evening, in the circle, underneath the street lamp.

But Mom would call us in, so in we would go, get a 60-second bath (I taught our kids the 60-second shower version), and then: off to bed!

It was frustrating when we could still hear neighborhood kids out in the circle talking and playing, catching lightning bugs and swatting mosquitoes.

This is by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?