Yesterday’s summer haiku challenge from NPR has sent me toodling down memory lane. Three haiku apparently weren’t enough, so I keep flashing back to new memories of summers long gone.

Blink, and I’m looking at the two-acre plot at the back edge of our rural property where my mom made her vegetable garden. Rows and rows of corn and beans, potatoes, onions, radishes, tomatoes, peas, blueberries and blackberries, zucchini that grew to the size of Whiffle ball bats…more than I can remember. I see my mother crouching between rows, weeding and harvesting, filling up bushel baskets with each day’s plenty.

Blink again, and I’m at the kitchen sink with my sister, perched side by side on stools, shelling peas for dinner and for canning, eating handful after delicious handful raw. That flavor is one of my purest childhood memories, a mouthful of sweet freshness that I adored.

Blink.

Now I’m with my family in the back yard, chowing down warm, sweet corn on the cob, ear after ear slathered in butter, hoping to win the day’s title of champion for quantity consumed. I’m sure I have no real memory of how much I could pack away, but somewhere in my head is the number seven. I can’t imagine I could eat more than my dad, and I can’t remember whether he ever let me win. I only know we all loved the evenings after a corn harvest, both for the taste of fresh-picked corn and the fun of the game.

Blink. My first dog is with us now, Lucky, the Dalmatian we got when I was just 3-4 years old. He’s probably hoping for corn or a fallen piece of meat, but not likely to get one. If there’s one thing we kids learned, it was not to feed the dog from the table—even a picnic table. And now he’s climbing up the steps of our tall, metal slide, and scramble-sliding down the slippery metal to the delight of children and parents alike.

Another blink, and I’m soaring into the air on the swingset in our back yard, higher and higher, legs pumping, too high even to launch myself into the air, but I’ll do it anyway and somehow land uninjured.

Now the neighborhood kids are in the yard, too, on the flat half-acre separating my house from my grandmother’s, where we’ve set up makeshift bases, donned our softball gloves, and pooled together bats and balls. If there are enough of us, we’ll divide into sides; if not, we’ll take turns batting and fielding. Eventually we’ll set aside the softball equipment and grab Frisbees—unless that’s where this afternoon started and we’ve already dropped the discs to the ground.

I could reminisce this way all day, or maybe all summer. It’s still rainy spring in Chicago, temperature around 65° F and the potted plants wallow in soupy, drenched soil. I wear my fleece or raincoat to work nearly every day, and I might just be pining for summerlike temperatures. I love spring, and I’m not eager for 90° days, but this weather pattern is truly worrisome.

So I’m happy to stay in my childhood a while longer, and I have NPR to thank for this, so…thank you, NPR. Has anyone else written any summer haiku? My husband thought one of my offerings yesterday ended too abruptly, so I’m reworking it. Here’s where it’s currently at:

Crack of bat on ball,
outfielder backpedals, leaps,
glove outstretched with hope

And for good measure, because all of this keeps coming back to the haiku:

Perched atop stepstools,
girls sit side by side, shelling,
mouths full of fresh peas

In the tree branches
a lone girl lies, book in hand,
lost in the story