There’s a 40-year-old, hand-drawn picture hanging above my desk—a recreation of a classic Calvin & Hobbes cartoon created by one of my brothers. It shows Calvin & Hobbes lounging on the branches of a big tree, sun shining, birds singing, the perfect summer day. The caption reads, “The days are just packed.”
I smile every time I look up. It perfectly encapsulates my childhood summers—days, weeks, months spent wandering with brothers, sister, and friends through the woods and fields surrounding our house.
Like Calvin & Hobbes, our backyard featured a huge, old elm tree. Its branches reached out, seemingly endlessly, in all directions. Our gang lived in that tree; we climbed it many times a day. Sometimes we’d climb to play our version of tree dodgeball, where one person on the ground would try to knock somebody out by hitting them with a ball from down below. I can still remember my brother Ryan, at the very top of the tree, hanging on to the smallest branches, swaying out over the ground as he moved the entire branch away from the ball rocketing towards his head.
It was always a marvel to watch—and a wonder the branch never broke and sent him tumbling to the ground.
Sometimes, we’d climb the tree to avoid being “it” in an eternal round of tag.
The tree was our right-field wall in the never-ending game of baseball, providing comic relief as balls pinged into its branches, then hopped to and fro on the journey to the ground. The right-fielder laughed and yelled as he or she tried to judge where the ball would land, always ending in a last-minute (usually unsuccessful) dive.
But most often, we’d climb the tree and just simply be. We’d sit silently, listening to the wind rustle the leaves and watching the occasional plane write contrails in the sky. We would do nothing at all, but if you asked, like Calvin & Hobbes, we’d tell you our days were “packed.”
There are many ways to spend a summer, but as I look back over the years, those summer months in Wisconsin still seem perfect. The adventures our gang had in the tree, in the fields, and across the street in the quarry were nonstop. No day started with a plan, but each night, we dropped into bed physically exhausted, happy, and relaxed. It was pure, unadulterated fun. If anybody asked, we simply said we were playing. That’s all we did all summer—play.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely visiting our little slice of heaven for some summer fun. Maybe you’re here for the entire season. Maybe you’re here for a few days. Or maybe you live here year-round. Whatever the case, my hope for you is that your days are “packed” in the best sense of the word.
Have a great summer!
Rodney J. Auth
Publisher
