Comments on: Summer Nights

By: joy

joy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:00:12 +0000

turnabout is certainly fair play!

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:13:56 +0000

Hilarious, Jenn! I’m also terrified of roller coasters. Once, I think I blacked out because I remember experiencing sheer terror right before a drop and then next thing I knew, park employees were gathered around me after the ride was over, trying to pry my hands off the safety bar and telling me to breathe. The friend who was with me said she called them over because my lips had turned purple and I was unresponsive.

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:09:45 +0000

Oh, thanks, Shell. Many of my personal experiences are, um, abnormal, but they’re funny once I get past them. Your kind of camping sounds like absolute luxury. Your pea beats my tree branch stabbing me in the spine.

And yes, my friend is very wise in how she sees parenting.

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:48:58 +0000

I’m STILL scared of slugs! Ewwwww! Maybe you can put a snake in a paper bag, give it to your aunt and see how she handles it?

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:38:11 +0000

That sounds like a scene from a movie. Fireworks over the Hudson? Fantastic.

By: jenn

jenn — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:13:17 +0000

My parents were both teachers, and my mom was really sick growing up, so family vacations consisted of going wherever my dad’s teacher conferences were. They were usually fun, although many times we were stuck in the hotel room while mom slept and dad was at the conference.

When I was 16, my parents saved and saved to take us to Disneyworld. My brother was 14, and my sister was 11. It was so much fun, but I remember riding this kiddie roller coaster (I am deathly afraid of roller coasters). My mom and I rode in the car together, and after we got off, this little kid tugged on his dad’s hand and said: “Daddy, what’s wrong with that big girl?” I was mortified. Even more mortifying was the photo of my face from one particularly scary dip…

By: Shell Sherree

Shell Sherree — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:56:15 +0000

I’m glad I wasn’t still sipping my morning coffee when I read about your aunt in the gift shop! You have so many wonderful experiences to recount, PCN, but it’s the way you tell them that makes them extra-special. As for camping, we did our share, though usually on beaches, but even with pump-up air mattresses, sleeping bags, quilts and carpet on the ground, it was too rough for me! {I’m sure there was a pea somewhere underneath all of that…}

“One of my best friends once told me part of her job is to create happy memories for her children.” That’s lovely!

By: joy

joy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:48:07 +0000

brilliant!! LOVE the memory about your aunt….i howled when i read that one! when i was a kid, i was terrified of slugs. like, immobilized by them. not good when you live in the pacific northwest where everything is a damp playground for ginormous slugs. one weekend my family met up with my aunt and uncle for a picnic, and when everyone was gathering up the trash at the end, my aunt pointed me to a paper bag full of used paper plates. dutifully, i grabbed it, only to come face to face with a huge brown slug. i shrieked, tossed the bag in the air, and burst into tears. my aunt laughed until she realized that i was totally and completely freaked about by those damn things. i still guilt trip her about it.

By: Reader#9

Reader#9 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:58:20 +0000

Your experiences are always hilarious, PCN!

My favorite 4th was during my first year living in NYC. I was on my own and living in a really terrible studio apartment. Technically, I did have roommates, but they were cockroaches so they don’t count.

I had only a few friends, but the relationships were tenuous at best since they were in high school, extremely rich and my co-workers at an ice-cream cafe I was working at after I got out of college.

Anyway, I wanted to go to the fireworks and no one wanted to come along, so I packed a backpack full of snacks and a crappy blanket and headed out to a spot along the Hudson for optimum viewing. It was early. No one was there. I fell asleep in the sun and woke up with thousands of people pressed in close all around me. I was sunburned, groggy and I had been drooling, too. I packed my stuff back up as my little bit of squatter real estate closed became standing room only. Tugboats appeared along the river shooting streams of brightly colored water straight up in the air and then the fireworks went off.

It was blast. Absolutely the best display of fireworks I have ever seen.

I came there alone, but ended up leaving with about 40 people to head over to the South Street Seaport pier. A bunch of us got on a sailboat and went for a cruise. These strangers shared everything they had with me quite freely. I felt like a king. A lot of them still keep in touch. It was a great first summer in New York.

By: EIREGO

EIREGO — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:41:00 +0000

LMAO!!

I know, I know. It wasn’t exactly a family friendly thing, but 4th of July will always be synonymous with Summer lovin’ to me.