Childhood memories must be on my mind lately, because like the last one, this week’s 10-Minute Tale is also about childhood. Perhaps it’s because summertime brings out the inner child (particularly the child who wishes we had summers off). This week, the challenge is to record the typical activities you enjoyed during summertime. You can focus on a particular year or span all the summers of childhood. You’ve got 10 minutes—go!

For my tale, I ended up using a list for most of the memories. I felt like most people know (or can easily search on the Internet if they don’t know) what each activity is if they aren’t familiar with anything, because all my activities were pretty common. Here’s my tale:

Lazy Days of Summer
As a child, I’m sure I took for granted the long summers we had off from school. Ah, to live that life again. During summer, I generally enjoyed these activities, grouped by age:

Early elementary school:
* Playing with Barbies
* Spending way too many hours on video games, particularly Dr. Mario (original Nintendo) or Super Mario Brothers 3 (Super Nintendo) (I just searched online for a Dr. Mario image, and I found that you can now play it online. Beware, it’s addicting.)
* Jumping on the trampoline
* Playing “House,” along with its sister: “School”
* Playing with my friends’ cats (“Playing” seems to have a negative connotation, but we treated them extremely well.)
* Enjoying slides at the water parks
* Swimming at the pool

Late elementary school:
* Rollerblading at Classic Skating or 49th Street Galleria (My blades were black with neon-orange laces—beauties, eh?)
* Enjoying slides at the water parks
* Swimming at the pool
* Spending hours playing Scum or Nertz (I learned the art of the bridge shuffle. My friends now ask if I worked in Vegas; the answer is a definitive “no.” I credit all my skill to these long days of Scum and Nertz.)
* Playing night games like Sardines (I ended up in a foot cast at the start of summer after fifth grade because I didn’t see a hole in the ground during a game of Sardines; that’s a tough move for an elementary-school child—I couldn’t swim the entire summer.)
* Jumping on the trampoline
* Swinging on the bars at the elementary school

Middle school:
* Jumping on the trampoline
* Talking, talking, and more talking
* Playing board games
* Babysitting regularly
* Rollerblading at Classic Skating or 49th Street Galleria
* Swimming at the pool

High school:
* Participating in youth camps like AFY and EFY
* Babysitting regularly
* Working temp jobs on occasion
* Honestly, I can’t remember more right now, which is odd since these years were the most recent. I’ll have to ask my friends and siblings. But that’s for another 10-minute segment, since my time is up.