By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

I grew up in New Braunfels. It really was just like Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show. Neighbors were best friends. Kids walked to school together. Every mom was like your own mom watching and caring for the kids invading her kitchen. Dads took us on bike rides around the town on the weekend and stopped at Ol’ Bossy and Dairy Queen for ice cream. We played in the park. We fished in the rivers. We watched for the mailman and could buy stamps from him right there on the street.

We spent most of our time outdoors, especially in the summer when school was out. From sunup to way after sundown we would be running around yards and neighborhoods. There was no air conditioning, we didn’t really watch TV and there were certainly no electronic games. The boys would get up to all kinds of cowboy games with cap guns or cork guns. They would tie one another to the clothesline and take turns throwing spear grass at their bared chests. Girls would make innumerable mudpies and cakes. They would build fairy homes in the roots of trees, play with “Little Skittles” or jump rope. But in the summer, at least in my neighborhood, boys and girls played together.

On days when the temperatures soared into the 90s and 100s, you would have found us running through water sprinklers for hours, moving locations as many times as mom moved the sprinkler in the yard. Sprinklers were different in each yard: “the fountain”, “the back-and-forth” and “the sprayer” were the most common. After we were all pruny from the water, we’d get on our bikes and ride through the puddles in the driveway and street wasting none of the cool water. As we got older, some families got “Slip-n-Slides” or “Water Wiggles”, not mine, but we could always join the fun at a neighboring yard.

We spent long days in the tops of the oak and cedar trees that were abundant on our street. Treehouses abounded in the neighborhood. Many were begun by dads on a weekend, but kids would add to them using scrap lumber and pieces of old picnic tables. Our treehouse eventually spanned between six cedar trees and had multiple stories accessed by boards nailed ladder-like up the tree trunks. We would spend whole days above the ground participating in grand adventures. We took a trip around the world one summer, decorating the platforms with odds and ends found in the garage storage room. We sailed through pirate and shark infested waters. We would perch in the branches and read comic books or books from the library. Once, reality created its own adventure. Climbing into our treehouse we were confronted with a 4-foot snake curled up in the branches. We went shinnying and screaming down the ladders and ran to find Dad.

We rarely went into the house unless Mom called us in for lunch or supper. Sometimes Mom would show up with a plate of cookies — very June Cleaver on “Leave it to Beaver” like. We drank a lot of Kool-aid and had lots of Kool-aid popsicles made from Tupperware molds but water was always readily available in two flavors. If “rubber” was your favorite, then the garden hose was waiting for you. If you liked “metallic” then you drank straight from the outside faucet. Either way, you needed to let the water run a bit because it first came out blazing hot. Toilets? Not necessary. Boys had the advantage, but as a Texas girl you learned early how to “pop a squat” behind a bush.

We would create swings with old tires we found dumped in Panther Canyon and then play that game where you twist the rope up tight and let go to spin at break-neck speed. Definitely not my favorite.

On summer days when the sky was incredibly blue and fluffy dazzling white clouds were moving slowly across the sky, we would go and get the “old outside blanket” and lay it out on the grass. Lying prone, face-up, we would play the “I see a…” game watching the ever-changing cloud shapes.

During the pre-supper hour, we had the privilege of watching the Jonny Quest cartoon series on the television. We would be glued to the screen as we became immersed in the adventure of Dr. Benton Quest, his son Jonny, adopted son Hadji, the bodyguard Race Bannon and of course, Jonny’s little bulldog Bandit. We hated missing the show.

After supper, the old outside blanket would make its appearance again. Often, one of the neighbor families would come over and while the moms and dads talked about I have no idea what, we kids would lay on the blanket and stargaze. It seems like we had a lot of “falling stars” back then. When that got old, we ran around chasing lightning bugs; their twinkling blinks magically lighting up the dark. We would catch 10-12 of them gently in our hands and then imprison the bugs in glass mayonnaise jars with holes punched into the tin lids. After bath time (we didn’t have a shower), we’d place the jar on the bedside table and fall asleep watching the fireflies go around-and-around in the jar. In the morning the fireflies were all dead but it didn’t deter us from catching new ones. We certainly didn’t know anything about the whole “females attracting males” thing.

Playing outside all day made us fall instantly asleep and wake up ready for another day of adventures.

Summers were simple. Neighbors were kind. Kids played hard without much, if any cost, but the memories we made remain priceless.