![]() Our family is one of many who has found new ways to fill our free time. Families were learning new skills together - gardening, preparing the food they were growing and cooking at home together from scratch. The summer of 2020 was shaping up to be one spent largely outdoors - swimming, hiking, camping and biking. For many people, getting back to basics and providing their kids with all the tools they needed for an “old-fashioned” summer seemed to be a popular way to make that happen. ![]() People were longing to get outside and, hopefully, feel some sense of normalcy again. Mother nature was waking up, and in a way, so were we. “We had to go to Washington, Pennsylvania, just to find a small inflatable pool for the boys.” OLD IS NEW AGAIN “My husband Keith, the gardener of the family, waited in long lines at Lowe’s to try to get seeds and fertilizer,” Bell recalled. Gardening tools, seeds and soil were also hot commodities. We were juggling working from home, managing our kids’ remote schooling and trying to keep them entertained in the hours in between.īell noticed right away that craft supplies were being wiped out in stores. In Wheeling, residents were under stay–at-home orders, winter still had a hold on our area, and most of us were quickly tiring of being cooped up inside our houses. There was no need for families to make a concerted effort to pull back from obligations so that they could slow down to appreciate time together COVID-19 was making that decision for us. In fact, there was quite literally nothing to do. Then suddenly in March 2020, the world grinded to a virtual halt, and there was no more hustling, no more shuffling. There is no denying it - rather than the laid-back summers, our kids spend a lot more time than we ever did being shuffled among people, places and activities with little time left over to spend time in nature, exploring their neighborhoods and even their own backyards. There’s a great big world out there just waiting to be their playground.” Jessica, Jackson and Quinn Bell take in some of West Virginia’s beautiful scenery. “I hope that if one good thing comes from this pandemic, it is that there is a realization that for kids, sun and fun go hand in hand. ![]() “Many of today’s kids don’t know the slow, laid-back way we knew summers as children,” she said. The pediatric registered nurse -and mother of two boys, Jackson, 10 and Quinn, 3 - recalls growing up in the 1980s when playing outside ruled the days - and often the nights - and screens were reserved for Saturday mornings or a rainy day. ![]() ![]() Wheeling resident Jessica Bell remembers those summers well. Being punished and made to stay indoors was a form of torture. Most of us remember the long, lazy summer days of our own childhoods spent outdoors, just waiting to be filled up with memories - the enticing aroma of chlorine wafting out of the swimming pool, the exhilaration of jumping on the trampoline with no fear, the peaceful quiet of reading in a shady spot in the yard for hours and flying through the streets of our neighborhoods on bikes with the same feeling of freedom as a teenager with the keys to their parents’ car. Gen X or Millennial parents know the twinge of sadness that comes with the feeling that their own kids’ experience is playing out so differently than their own. It’s hard to argue that the things kids spend their time on in their free time have changed drastically over the past few decades. Today’s post looks at how Mother Nature has helped some families through this summer.įew things can stir up nostalgia like the memories of our childhood summers. Weelunk’s series, “Bygone Comebacks,” will take a look at some of the ways we’ve been slowing down. We are finding that these traditional pastimes are somewhat calming in this time of COVID-19. Editor’s note: Have you noticed lately that bits of the past are creeping into the present? We’re gardening more, going to drive-in movies, spending time with nature, putting jigsaw puzzles together. ![]()
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