Memories of Summers Past
I bet if we were to gather a group of us together for a discussion about some of our fondest
memories from childhood, many of those memories would be related to how we spent our
summers. My childhood summer memories mostly involve palling around with neighborhood
friends—participating in seemingly endless sessions of hide-n-seek or tag-you’re-it, usually at
dusk; competing against a very best friend all afternoon in impossibly long games of Chutes
and Ladders or Monopoly; swimming all afternoon at the local high school pool and coming
home thoroughly sunburned and ready to do it again the next day; walking half a mile (which
seemed more like three miles) to the local branch of the town’s library to return a pile of books
and get a new pile to replace it; riding bikes from one school yard recreation program to
another, looking for opportunities to engage with the recreation leaders, who were fabulously
charismatic high school students whom we adored. Your specific activities were certainly not
identical to mine, but they likely had some of the same feelings of open-endedness, possibility,
and connection that mine had.
Shift to the task of putting together a summer program for pre- and elementary school UU
children. How great it would be to capture some of that magic—the open-endedness,
possibility, and connection—that we recall from our long ago summers, in my case well over 60
years ago. That goal may be too ambitious for a once a week program in a moderately sized
UU community in the years following a pandemic that shifted everyone’s ways of engaging with
their world. But we on the Family Ministry Team are still holding the significance of memorable
summer experiences in mind as we build the lessons each week for the children who show up
to spend an hour engaging with us. The scale of our operation may be small, but our
intentions are robust and heartfelt.
Through the month of August, we are continuing to use the UU Summer Curriculum entitled
Can Do Summer. So far, this summer we have constructed and launched paper airplanes, built
a fairy house, and explored all things fishy. Before the official publication of this newsletter
occurs, we will be building blanket forts and exploring our bodies as percussion instruments.
In August we will be building junk sculptures, making our way through obstacle courses,
designing tooth pick architecture, and perhaps creating our own mini-golf experience.
Let me end by saying, we are always looking for people who would enjoy spending a Sunday
with us in Kids Connection once in a while. We have a core group of dedicated people who
have been helping out as second teachers for a long time now, and we so very much
appreciate them. If we could double that core group of people from about 4 to 5 to about 8 to
10, then no one person would be called upon to serve as a second teacher more than once
every two months. The role of the second teacher is to be a presence in the room and help out
as needed. Mostly, it is a chance to enjoy the children. We hope that a few more of you will
find your way to this opportunity to serve our UUCM community. It is a relatively low pressure/
high reward way to serve UUCM. If you would like to explore this low pressure/high reward
opportunity to serve, contact us at familyministry@uugrassvalley.org. Or, better yet, touch
bases some Sunday (before or after the service) with Cheryl Spaulding, Lindsay Dunckel, or
Rene Wiley. We would be glad to share with you some the joy that we experience by spending
time with the youngest UU’s in this community.
ACTIVITIES THIS MONTH INCLUDE:
UUCM Camping Trip, August 18-20 at Plumas Eureka State Park, Upper Jamison Camp.
Forward questions to Shannon at shannondooleymiller@uugrassvalley.org.
