First day of camp; I was seven, Roger nine. We wore matching sneakers. I wished we were twins; in a couple of years I would cut my hair short and dress like a boy sometimes, hoping people thought we were.
We waited for the bus each morning at the end of our driveway on Greenwood Avenue, a stretch of road then that was sleepy, a huge, empty field across from our house, and up the block a Sinclair station with that big Dino the Dinosaur in front. A place where you would get free glasses with every fill-up, and where my brothers would buy bottles of soda by the case and sell them at the nearby little league games for a few pennies’ profit. These days Greenwood Avenue is four lanes in front of where our house was, and at the corner a car dealership takes up a complete block. 
Wagon Wheels had a talent show on the last day of camp. I don’t remember what Roger did for it, but I danced The Freddie with a bunch of little girls under the hot August sun.
School was just a month away.
Patricia Ann McNair 
I am very happy to have found this blog and to be, in mere moments, following. As soon as I read the work Sinclair, I got excited. I am from New England and I don’t think we ever had them here but when my husband and I visited the south west – our Vegas wedding – we saw those dinos and thought they were the coolest. (Overgrown kids.)
Hello, and thank you! I have wandered over to your site as well and it is full of wonderful things. Here’s to memories!
Cheers! And thank you.
Patricia, when you went to wagon wheels daycamp in the Chicago Park District, do you remember which park they held it in? I lived in West Rogers Park when I was a kid and my brother and I I know probably my sister as well went to daycamp there.
Hi, Rachel, and thanks for reading and the note. Our camp was in the northwest suburbs, Des Plaines or Park Ridge. Not part of the CPD I am afraid. All best, P