Summer - Cousin G

Summer is not fun for everyone.
Fortunately for little Johnny Gillespie, this summer was going perfectly and he was having the time of his life. He was enrolled in summer camp and it the most fun thing he could ever remember doing, and he was already nine, so he had a lot of memories. At least he thought so. One day while he was waiting for his turn to kick in a camp game of kickball, he had a flashback to last summer.

His parents had dragged him and his older sister all over the country visiting all these relatives and friends that he did not remember although apparently he had met most of them before. He had gotten pretty sick of being told what a handsome young boy he was. What did he care about that? He wanted to be playing kickball. His sister also was pretty irritated about having to leave all her friends so she was in a bad mood during the entire trip. This resulted in her being mean to him which didn’t help things at all for Johnny.

“Johnny, you’re up!” yelled the camp counselor who was acting as his team’s coach.

He kicked a single which scored a run for his team.

Johnny’s older sister wasn’t having as much fun as he was. She was headed off to college for her freshman year in the fall and she was panicking about her wardrobe and her computer, cell phone, ipod, and a whole lot of other things that she wanted replaced with the latest and greatest things on the market. In order to pay for all this stuff, she had to have income so she had a boring and monotonous summer job working at a grocery store. She did get to see her friends when she wasn’t working or shopping but all they did was sit around her room and complain about how they didn’t have the latest computer, cell phone, ipod, or whatever else, and worry about how disastrous college might turn out to be. Johnny could not understand why they would waste their time on such severely boring conversations but he just figured that that’s what boring older sisters did. Most of the time he was having too much fun to notice anyway.

If Johnny’s sister thought she was having the worst summer of all time, she was greatly mistaken. Her parents both worked full time and were working overtime because of recent lay offs and because they wanted to make a little extra cash to compensate for the humongous bills they would be paying due to their daughter entering into college.

Meanwhile there was little Johnny Gillespie out at summer camp. He was playing kickball and also baseball, football, basketball, tennis, etc. To Johnny, summer was a time to have endless fun and if someone had told him that it wasn’t always going to be that way he wouldn’t have listened and he wouldn’t have cared. After all, he was only nine.

Summer - Aunt S

Farmer John got out on his tractor and started it up. "It's summer now," he thought, "time to plant." He looked around. His neighbors had planted their fields already, but the rain had washed away what they planted. "For once, procrastination is my friend," thought Farmer John.

Farmer John was retired from farming. He had most of his property in alfalfa or a cover crop. His best friend was a beekeeper.

"I think I'll dress my place up this year," said Farmer John. He threw some flower seeds around his house. "I like tomatoes," said Farmer John. He planted 15 varieties of tomatoes. "I like pesto," said Farmer John. "I really like pesto on sliced tomatoes," he thought. He planted several varieties of basil. "I wonder if this is my year to grow cucumbers," thought Farmer John. He planted some cucumber seeds. "I've got all this property going to waste," thought Farmer John. "I'll grow some corn. I like corn."

Pretty soon, Farmer John had a lot going on in his garden. He ate delicious vegetables and enjoyed looking at all his flowers blooming. His garden got just the right amount of rain, so he didn't have to water anything. Once in awhile, his friend, the beekeeper, would come over to visit, and they would sit on the porch and eat watermelon if it was very hot.

Farmer John thought it was his best summer ever.