August 2002 ~ I was really at a loss this month for inspiration. So much is happening, yet it’s all so mundane. Then I saw this old photo and it reminded me of my childhood summers…running barefoot, staying out late into the night playing after dark, catching fireflies. There was this local TV show that encouraged kids to have a backyard carnival to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy. It was a big thing in our neighborhood, Hillmead. Every kid had one – me included. We got to sell tickets for the very same backyard activities we did every day, swinging, riding on the whirligig, sliding down the slide. And we sold lemonade and candy and hot dogs. Everyone came, even the parents. That’s where my mother met her best friend, Gerry Cornell, in a backyard on Ridge Road. After dinner, we all listened for the jingling bells that meant the Good Humour man was nearby – we called him the Popsicle man. We all ran barefoot to the corner for nickel Popsicles in flavours you just can’t get today – vanilla, blueberry, root beer, and once in a blue moon, banana….back in the summer of ’59.