Krak,
I love your stories, and yes, it did cause some summer memories to bubble to the top for me.
I grew up in a semi-rural area where some neighbors had horses. A couple of neighbor girls and I would wander through the fields and woods, and sneak bareback rides on a horse now and then without the owner's knowledge of it. We were out of sight of home all day without our parents ever wondering or asking where we were going. Your story reminded me of the time I grabbed the barbed-wire fence to spread it apart enough to squeeze into the horse pasture. Bang, a charge of electricity knocked me right on my butt! The owner had never had the fence turned on before!
I have three older sisters, and all 4 of us played softball. We biked to the local field for practice and games with our gloves hanging on the handlebar, and again the parents had no involvement - they didn't even know when our games were. We spent hours and hours every day at that field. I remember the sky being so blue, and the grass so green, dotted with yellow dandelions...watch out for the bees!
When there was no softball to play and no horses to ride, one of our favorite activities was to climb up on a garage roof, sit there for a while with feet dangling over the edge, and then dare each other to jump. Eventually we would each jump, usually not doing too much damage beyond a twisted ankle or two, and then climb back up and see if we could do it again. How many of us would want our kids doing that these days, LOL? I remember spending a lot of time climbing trees too, and seeing who could get the highest up before branches became too close together, or too flimsy. Plenty of scratches from the branches, some sticky pine sap on the hands, arms, and in the hair, and a few falls, but that never stopped us from climbing. I do not remember watching any daytime TV during summer vacation - we were outdoors most of the day.
Julie