10 on the 10th: July 2024-Special Summer Memories

Another month has passed us by and here we are again 10 days into the new month, making it a not-so-new month at all! 10 on the 10th is a monthly series hosted by Marsha in the Middle and is open to anyone who wants to join. You can share your answers in Marsha’s link party if you have a blog or you can share your answers in the comment section. It is such a fun way to offer more information about ourselves and to learn interesting new things about others. The questions posed provide a great avenue for starting new conversations, making meaningful connections with new people, and having a good hearty chuckle every now and then.

For July, Marsha chose a different format from her traditional 10 specific questions and has asked us to share 10 special summer memories instead.

So let me start my list and see if I can make it to 10!

1. July 10, 2006.

Today’s date brings with it lots of emotions. Some sad, some happy, but all special memories for sure. On this date 18 years ago, shortly after midnight, my mother passed away in the midst of a terrible thunder and lightning storm. She was 57 years old.

During her final days of battling colon cancer, she had been admitted to a nursing home for hospice care. The end was inevitably coming any day, so we had already begun making arrangements with the funeral home that was adjacent to the nursing home.

As we neared the final moments of my mother’s life on earth, the storm picked up with a ferocity that I have only ever witnessed a few times in my life. Minutes before she passed, a vicious clap of thunder was accompanied by a lightning bolt that struck the top of the funeral home. As we watched in astonishment through the window of my mother’s room, we saw the top floor of the funeral home go up in flames. The timing combined with our heightened state of emotions made this lightning strike seem like an act of God. It was frightening and intense and, in a strange way, very beautiful because there really is a certain beauty in death.

No one was injured in the funeral home blaze but it did damage the building enough that all of arrangements had to be outsourced to another funeral home. This essentially turned disastrous by the day of mom’s funeral, but that’s another story for another day!

In any event, July 10 can make me experience a wide range of emotions from sadness (because no one is ever ready to lose their mother) to gratitude and joy (because I was blessed with a really amazing, loving, caring, and supportive mother who taught me how to be a pretty darn good mother myself).

July 10 will always be a special day for me as I keep the memory of my beloved mother alive. Sharing stories about our loved ones who have passed before us is the way that we can keep them alive forever!

2. An ant in my pants.

I just shared this “special” memory in my post about the Great Ant War of ’24. Perhaps it would be more adequately qualified as a traumatizing memory, but special in its own sort of way! If you want a laugh about the ant that was literally in my pants, go on and read that post!

3. Pool Sitting.

I did a lot of sitting at the public swimming pool during my childhood summers. This pool sitting is exactly what led to me getting an ant in my pants! But I have some really special memories of Meuser Park Pool in Wilson, Pennsylvania, as well. The old pool was recently demolished and a whole new facility was built for the next generation of pool babies to enjoy grass sitting and water dipping.

4. “Hey Mick! Is that a maxi pad stuck to your leg?!”

Since I am on the topic of memories from Meuser Pool, I have to share this “special” one. But only for its comic relief. At the time, like the ant in my pants, it really was a bit mortifying. Surprisingly, I did not die from embarrassment. I lived to tell the story and I have matured enough to laugh about it. I hope you will laugh, too. And share it with any young ones who may be struggling through embarrassing puberty experiences. They will definitely feel less embarrassed after hearing this one.

I first got my period when I was 12 years old. As you know, I was an avid swimmer and this new body function was not really conducive to my summer plans. I was not comfortable wearing tampons at first so after having read that your period will not flow when your body is immersed in water, I opted for a panty liner in my swim suit. I quickly realized how very impractical this solution was.

I had a swim meet at Meuser Pool and decided to try my panty liner trick for the first time. I removed it from my swim suit when it was time to swim my first race. Immediately following my race, I wrapped a towel around my waist and headed straight to the bathroom to put a new panty liner into my swimsuit.

After placing the pad in my suit, I shed my towel and confidently strutted my way back out onto the pool deck. As I was strolling down one side of the pool, I could hear my father yelling frantically from the other side of the pool, attempting to alert me to something. Stupid girl that I was, it never occurred to me that the pad adhesive wouldn’t stick very well to wet swim suit lycra. As I strutted along, the pad slowly slid out of my swim suit and down to the inside of my thigh where the adhesive finally decided to stick. My father was yelling, “Hey Mick! Is that a maxi pad stuck to your leg?!” When I finally made out what he was saying, I looked down aghast at the maxi pad that was indeed stuck to my leg. And I took off running back to the bathroom and never tried that pad in a wet swim suit trick ever again. I think I learned how to manage tampons shortly after that incident. Haha.

Knowing my father, he was not trying to embarrass me at all. He was simply trying to alert me as quickly as possible to avoid embarrassing me. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that other people would hear him as he screamed to me across a crowded pool deck.

Like I said, I survived it and I laugh really hard about it now. I have shared the story with my children so they know that embarrassing puberty moments will not kill them and they make for really great stories later in life!

5. That time I swam at Nationals: Summer 1992.

Back in those days when I was an elite athlete, I qualified to swim at Summer Nationals in Nashville, Tennessee. On the eve of my race, some teammates and I were goofing off in the hotel elevator bank. We would jump in an elevator together, hit the buttons to every floor, and then try to shove each other out when the doors opened and not let them back in before the doors closed. When it was my turn to be shoved out, I smashed my right pinky toe in the elevator door as I dove back inside.

I have a very abundant history of broken pinky toes. I am a little bit clumsy so I stub my toes often and they end in breaks about 50% of the time. I have suffered a broken pinky toe on average of at least once a year over the course of my life. By the time I was 18, I could easily self diagnosis my broken toe bones. I really wonder what an MRI of my pinky toes would look like. There is probably all sorts of manglendness going on in there!

Anyway, my elevator shenanigans resulted in a broken pinky toe the night before I had to swim my race at Nationals. One might think that a broken toe would not have a great effect on swimming. In fact, I swam quite well. It was the pushing off the starting block and the walls on my turns where the pain was astonishing and had a terrible effect on my overall time. I swam nearly 2 seconds slower than my qualifying time and was beat by the 13 year old in the lane next to me. Oh, how that hurt my 18 year old ego even more than the broken toe bone!

6. Smoked Country Jam!

This summer, we attended our fourth consecutive Smoked Country Jam Bluegrass Festival. My kids call it “the second best holiday after Christmas”. They get to run feral in the woods for three days while Jeff and I relax in the sunshine listening to the music. We are completely unplugged and off the grid for the entire weekend and it really is a beautiful way to get out in nature and reset ourselves. We make lots of wonderful family memories each summer at this festival that we will cherish forever. My favorite one from this year was doing crossword puzzles with Ralph while we tried to stay cool in the shade. Oh, how that made my little wordsmith heart sing!

7. Beach Day with Grammy: Summer 1989/1990.

I have shared this story before in September’s 10 on the 10th post. But it’s a good story and a great childhood memory that still makes me smile.

I was about 15 or 16 years old and my maternal grandmother was about 70 or 71 when we went on vacation to some beach on the New Jersey coast. Grammy and I were wading through the surf when an aggressive wave came in and knocked her right on her butt. As she sat in the sand, immobilized by the plummeting waves, I initially got scared that she was hurt. Then she started giggling as she reached her hand out to me to help pull her up. Just as our hands connected, another aggressive wave came in and took me down with her. Then I started giggling. Each time we attempted to get back on our feet, another wave would get us. After the third or fourth time, we dissolved into fits of uncontrollable laughter as the waves kept pummeling us. The kind of laughter where you can’t catch your breath and your abdominal muscles start to ache. We eventually got ourselves out of the surf with no injuries and this a memory that still makes me laugh nearly 35 years later.

I don’t have any beach pictures of Grammy and me, but I do have this photo of us which is one of my favorites. I still have and sometimes wear Grammy’s blue shawl.

8. Always make sure you are wearing something under your sweatpants!

A lot of my summer memories are centered around swimming and pool time. So here is another one. This story involves my old friend Sal, the shirtless boy right in the center of the second row of the swim team photo that I shared in number 3.

We were teenagers when this incident happened. During summer swim team practices, we would put on our swim suits underneath our sweat clothes before heading to the pool for practice, thereby saving some time by avoiding the locker room. Instead we used this extra time to gather in a group, chatting away as teenagers will, as we absent-mindedly shed our sweatpants and hoodies to get ready for the pool. As Sal nonchalantly dropped his drawers with the confidence of teen boy who is donning a Speedo beneath his sweats, he very quickly realized that in his teenage morning sleep stupor, he had completely forgotten to put his swim suit on! In all the years that have passed since Sal forgot his swim suit, I have yet to witness another human being put their pants back on with the same speed and dexterity as he did.

9. Archie’s first summers: 2011 and 2012.

My first born was just a wee thing during his first summers. We spent many summer days those first two years with Payton, my sister’s first born grandchild, having playdates and pool parties. They were the best of friends until we moved to New York in 2013. Those carefree summer memories of the baby days will always remain so sweet!

10. Oogie’s Ice Cream Photoshoot: Summer 2012.

My sister has owned a vintage ice cream truck business for nearly 20 years. In the summer of 2012, we did a photoshoot for Oogie’s Ice Cream featuring Archie and Payton in the cutest little outfits. We are visiting my sister in 2 weeks and have every intention of recreating the photo of these two adorable cousins who are both teenagers now. I just ordered Archie a bright pink gingham shirt for the occasion. I cannot wait to see how the re-creation photo turns out!

If you enjoyed reading my 10 special summer memories, be sure to check out Marsha’s post and her link party for more fun responses. And feel free to share some of your own special summer memories in the comments. I would love to read them!

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties

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