SUMMER

Jerry and Sandra swimming

Hooper cousins, Jerry is the smallest one in the pictures.

Jerry is in the rocking chair crying,R.

Jerry far left, the smallest.

Below: L-R Jerry pouting on log, Inez, Dwight, Aunt Gee bent over, Mama Hooper in bonnett, Sandra little girl in dress

Who doesn't like being out of school for the summer? We always got out at Memorial Day and did not go back til after Labor Day..3 whole months. Summer was always filled with a lot of fun stuff and of course the "Weekly Readers" [a newspaper sort of thing that you could sign up for in school; it would come to your home in the summer with lots of word games and stories]. Daddy used to take us to the lake to swim, I think it was called Edgewater Beach. I was always a bit afraid to swim in the lake because it was dark and I could not see under the water. I took swimming lessons at Okeena Pool in the park at Dyersburg when I was 5 and 6 years old. The teacher was a college girl and the first day she told us to climb the high diving board and jump off. Well, we didn't have any better sense than to do as we were told. As we jumped off the board, she yanked us up by the hair and pushed us over to the side of the pool. We quickly learned to tread water.

Many Sunday afternoons, my brother would take me to Okeena to swim. He and his friend Mike would ride their bikes to the pool and I would ride with Buba on his bike. He had a portable radio that had a battery. It was about as big as an old computer monitor. He put it in his basket and rode along listening to the radio. That was way before I-PODS. He would wait outside the girls' dressing room for me and put our clothes in a metal basket that was then put in a locker and he wore the key on a safety pin on his trunks. I often wonder if he had much time to swim for keeping an eye on me. [ That was only one of the sacrifices he made for me.]

Another fun thing we did was to go to Uncle R.C. and Aunt Gee's to make ice cream with all the cousins. Uncle R.C. would let us all ride in the back of his pick-up to get ice: What fun! When the ice cream was ready to be churned, it was hand cranked not electric, I was the youngest so I was the lucky one who got to sit on the ice cream maker while someone turned the crank.

Wow, that was such good ice cream, made with milk that came from Aunt Gee's cows.

Even today, I love to swim and eat homemade ice cream.