BETWEEN THE LINES: OH, TO BE A KID AGAIN AND RELIVE THE JOYS OF SUMMER

I spent last week remembering why it was so great to be a kid.

Last week was vacation Bible school at my church and I got to lead the kids through the maze of activities. It was both an exhausting and exciting week.

I'm not really sure who had more fun, me or the girls in my class.

Helping in vacation Bible school reminded me of my childhood and the joys of summer vacation.

What a great time that was -- spending days outside playing in the yard or swimming at the city pool. It was a time of lazy afternoons and sleepovers at friends.

As an adult, I really miss summer vacation. I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have when I was younger. Now I long to have all those days full of opportunity and adventure back again. Days when you can sleep to noon and nobody calls you a slacker. Days when deciding whether to have bologna and cheese sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly was the biggest choice you made -- all week. Days when you could jump out of bed, throw on a pair of shorts and head barefoot to the backyard.

Those carefree days disappeared somewhere between college and full-time careers.

Sure, I can take a week or two during the year as a vacation from work, but nothing can beat that three-month rest called summer vacation.

Who else but children can pack so much adventure into one day? Who else but children see the day as an empty page waiting to be filled with new adventures and experiences. Children spend lazy summer afternoons riding bikes, playing baseball at the park and taking dips in the pool.

Almost every day as I drive to work, I pass children heading to the pool at Capaha Park. Some ride bicycles, others simply walk. They are loaded down with beach towels and water guns ready to hit the water.

It looks like so much fun that I want to join them and relax at the pool.

With temperatures soaring nearly to the 100-degree mark this week, I can think of no better way to cool off than in your local swimming pool. Unless it's at the lake. But since I don't own a boat, that's out of the question.

Probably one of the best summer vacations I ever spent was as a nanny in Connecticut. (I know it was certainly the summer I had the best tan ever.) Every afternoon I took the children to their country club pool. We swam, played games, had snacks and swam some more. Sometimes there were lessons or tennis matches that broke up the afternoon routine. But I could always find them at the pool.

I liked knowing where they would be -- it made my job a little easier. And it made our summer vacation a little more fun -- splashing around in the cool, refreshing waters.

How I miss those days. Don't you?

~Laura Johnston is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.