This time of year gives a much-needed break from our traditional schedules and demands. Summer can certainly develop a hectic pace, but I try to savor each simple pleasure. Over the years I have spent many summer nights with family and friends enjoying popcorn, glass bottle Cokes, and some of my favorite movies. I can’t let school start back without letting the kids and grandkids stay up past bedtime and enjoy these classic films.
Let Annie and Hallie’s summer camp conspiracies of The Parent Trap bring out your inner matchmaker. Or let the hilarious antics of Alfalfa and his gang in The Little Rascals be a sweet reminder of a childhood spent with neighborhood friends. Add sports to the mix and laugh as the The Sandlot team schemes to rescue their baseballs from Mr. Mertle’s junkyard.
Maybe you’re in the mood for a song? I love movies with classic music and I can’t help but sing along to “You’re the One That I Want” and the rest of the catchy tunes from Grease. Do you have a favorite summer film? Make sure to share it with those you love, and pass the popcorn!
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Second Hand Lions, The Goonies, ET, and The Sandlot–wonderful movies we enjoyed when our boys were growing up.
There is nothing like Coke in a bottle!
Phyllis, wonderful blog!
Miss Congeniality
Legally Blonde
Grease
Dirty Dancing
Top Gun
But my favorite summer fun is lying on the beach anywhere between Gulf Shores, Alabama and Panama City Beach along the gorgeous Emerald Coast!
Some good summer movies:
Roman Holiday
A Summer Place with Troy Donahue & Sandra Dee
Mamma Mia – The music & the dancing & in Greece
Dirty Dancing
Oh my goodness I just love all of these.
It’s The Music Man for me. Much of my childhood was taken up with day dreaming and thinking up ways to play with things at hand. We enjoyed using our imagination and making ourselves and each other happy with the make- believe grocery store on the back porch in sweltering, rainy weather and outlining houses for fairies in the smooth, cool, dark earth under a short Southern Pine’s spreading limbs. The older cousins, put on Shadow Shows behind sheets hung on the porch between the sun and the dark of the back half.
The Music Man always reminds me of those wonderful make-believe times where we all joined our imagination. Watching the Music Man in doors with the family takes me outdoors and far back into a busy, thinking- up- amusements time. Our accompanying refreshments were Grandpa’s home made ice cream full of fresh peaches or a pickled green tomato from his large stone crock.
Betsy, you’re childhood summers sound much like mine. We did not have A/C either! We girls played with our dolls under the spreading Oak tree in the backyard or turned the sprinkler on and had great fun with that. Evenings saw us playing softball with most of the neighborhood kids while our parents visited each other. When the game wound down we would lay on the front lawn marvel at the Milky Way, thoroughly entertained. And I don’t have to tell you about skates that clamped to your shoes, red flyer wagons that were really prairie schooners or chariots, or how many things you could so with an old bed sheet and a few sticks. Betsy, I wish you were my neighbor so we could compare notes over a glass of iced tea; it’d be fun. Hmm, come to think of it, I have an old mason jar in the garage. Wonder if I can still catch fireflies? Best, Lynda
Lynda, you are probably younger than I am at 85. Nobody had air conditioning in my childhood. I wish we could meet to exchange memories. Pelican Publishing company has published my poetry and they can tell you how to find me.
Children nowadays are cheated of learning to use their imagination and I am sorry for the ones that are stuck in front of TV or computer for “play”.
Another thing they don’t get is poetry memorization. I loved all the tiny poems we learned at home and in school and the longer ones we had to learn in high school. Being read to with my little brother at night in bed with our Grandpa was another marvelous entertainment. I learned to tell time in the same way, as we could see the old Court House clock with a pendulum and the most soothing tick in the world. Here’s to imagination, which Einstein said is more important than wisdom.
I will forever hold Frances Mayes so dear to my heart! Twelve years ago this month, I had just put our old “gardeners cottage” on the Long Island real estate market. Words cannot describe the love we all had for this home of ours and to me it was like a knife to my heart to have to leave it! With three daughters in college and a husband who loved his new job in Chapel Hill, I had no alternative but to put up a good front for everyone. My sweet daughters were concerned for me though and I think they saw through my happy face! One night they brought home Frances’s book and movie, “Under The Tuscan Sun” and they wanted to have a movie night! They thought I would love this movie. They thought I needed this movie! I did!!!
I had so much work to do that night and a movie was not in the plan but they were insistent that we all watch it together. So we curled up on the couches with dog, cats and popcorn and we were all transformed!!! What a movie and what a book!!! What subtle inspiration that touched our hearts that night! It marked a huge emotional turning point for all of us and our move to NC turned out to be the best move for our entire family! We have embraced all that we could in NC and have “collected” new families like Frances did and even three wonderful son in laws along the way!!! All of her books are wonderful but I have to say that “Under The Tuscan Sun ” is my all time favorite movie!!!
Thank you Frances!!!!
I is a very interesting movie. I enjoyed it so much.
The “little kid” in me comes out in the summer and I like to savor the memories of those fun, carefree days growing up on a farm – going barefoot, jumping from the high platform in the hay mow into the mountains of hay, picking wild berries, walking with my dad to bring in the cows from the pasture for milking, going into town to the “show hall” for week-end movies, helping to harvest garden goods, waiting for the county fair and so much more.
Of course, the movie “State Fair” was a favorite.
Here in Alaska the days are long and light so we stay outside late into the evening. Movies aren’t usually a part of our summer fun. But when they are I love Julie Andrews and her classics Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music. She’s beautiful and the singing and dancing are always a refreshing treat. Thank you for this journal post, I’m saving all of the movies you and the commenters shared for our long and dark winter nights!
Summer movies are much fun…especially anything with baseball. We loved watching Field of Dreams and The Rookie when my son was younger. And I love Audrey Hepburn’s Sabrina and Roman Holiday. We actually saw those on a big outdoor screen in the park a couple of summers ago. Everyone brought blankets to sit on and picnic dinners…it was wonderful! In Cape May New Jersey,they have movies on the beach for families…same kind of idea. Thank you Phyllis for always putting a smile on my face!!
Did you see the Natural (I think) with Robert Redford?
My husband and I love to watch Jaws on July 4th. We also love The Hunt for Red October on a hot day because most of the movie is set underwater in the cold north sea which makes me feel cooler. On the lighter side I do love The Seven Year Itch and How to Marry a Millionaire.
I too love the original Parent Trap. Another movie we enjoy is Dennis The Menace starring Walter Matthau as the grouchy old Mr. Wilson. Of course all the Disney Classics are great. The girls enjoy Troop Beverly Hills. We’ll even pull out some of the old great shows like E.T. It’s so nice but rare when they make a movie the whole family can enjoy watching together without the adult language and scenes. Reminds me of Sundays growing up when we all gathered to watch The Wonderful World of Disney and Bonanza (or Ponderosa). Two main tv shows that brought us together as a family out of a hectic week.
Like Brandon, my mind went to those wonderful days of drive-in movies!!
My parents and their friends would often arrange to park in the center of the middle row; thus, there were plenty of friends to play with at the playground in front of the screen before the movies. If it was a double feature, we often fell asleep on the pallet in a the back seat.
I still remember the special night I saw the Wizard of Oz. Seeing it first on that gigantic screen made it even more magical if possible!!
As always, Phyllis, thank you for allowing us to share and enjoy wonderful memories with our Ribbon community …
{Incidentally, the essay and responses on children’s books was most enjoyable! I’ve referred several new grandparents to some of the books that were mentioned.}
Thank you, Phyllis; I truly enjoyed this article. When our son Drew was growing up, we enjoyed a movie called Wild America (Jonathan Taylor Thomas). We also loved a movie called Paulie (Gena Rowlands). I could go on and on, as movies, and children’s theater productions were a huge part of his/our entertainment, especially Disney. I love your idea of the bottled Cokes and popcorn. There are some neat outdoor movie watching ideas on Pinterest.
Our grandchildren like nothing better than movie time before bed at the lake!! (“Who wouldn’t LOVE a talking mule!?!” One was heard to exclaim when “Francis the talking mule” was questioned.)
Movies are followed by “GONE FISHIN” ice cream and talk of the fun we’ve had that day.
Memories are made and Yaya and Papa enjoy EVERY MINUTE!!
Summer movies are the best….. it reminds me of being a very young boy who begged his parents to take him to the drive-in theatre. Sadly, the drive in theatres are few and far now and has been replaced with Blu-Ray DVD’s and streaming videos online.
But alas, not all is lost – Summer videos on the porch with good friends can be equally as memory making as trying to hide friends in the trunk of the car for the drive in pictures!
I especially liked Phyllis’ suggestion of watching The Parent Trap (The original with Haley Mills) as I still love this video decades later. It reminds me of Summer Camp as a kid and those are days that I miss a lot – ah, the memories!
This blog in particular has brought me back many years with all the carefree kid’s summer options for fun under the sun! Wonderful memories! THANKS!
Brandon Hartford
Te Deum Cottage
My favorite is probably the original version of The Parent Trap. We have watched it maybe a million times at our house, what with two little girls growing up. I can’t wait until the mommy of my two granddaughters decides they are ” old enough” to watch it.
One of my girlfriends was actually an extra in the movie, and a few years back we went to the campgrounds ( now a Christian retreat center) and relived the whole experience with her.
Summer movies are fun, but my favorite passtime is sitting on my swing or a deck chair reading beach themed novels, Victoria, Tea Time and The Cottage Journal :-). I really do!! :-). Oh, and either raspberry iced tea or iced mocha..yum