Cooperative Living July 2018 - 4

Viewpoint | by Richard G. Johnstone Jr., Executive Editor
Vol. 72, No. 7
ISSN 1529-4579
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
Executive Editor
BILL SHERROD
Editor
LAURA EMERY
Field Editor
JANET BAILEY
Production Manager
TOMMY CAMPBELL
Design & E-Media Coordinator
AMANDA S. CUNNINGHAM
Advertising Sales
MARY HOWELL
Communications & P.R. Coordinator
NINA JACOBS
Administrative Coordinator
To contact magazine:
9 a.m.-5 p.m. M-F
Phone: (804) 346-3344
Or at any time:
Fax: (804) 346-3448
Email: bsherrod@vmdaec.com
Web: www.co-opliving.com
Published by the VA, MD & DE Association
of Electric Cooperatives
JAMES E. HUFFMAN
Chairman
HERBERT R. PATRICK
Vice Chairman
FLETCHER B. JONES
Secretary/Treasurer
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
President & CEO
Board of Directors: R. Wayne Browning, Belvin Williamson, Jr.,
A&N; C. Michael Sandridge, Michael J. Keyser, BARC; George N.
Goin, Gary E. Wood, Central Virginia; Robert E. Arnold, Michael
I. Wheatley, Choptank; Jeannette S. Everett, Steven A. Harmon,
Community; James E. Huffman, Shawn C. Hildebrand, CraigBotetourt;
Patricia S. Dorey, J. William Andrew, Delaware;
Fletcher B. Jones, John C. Lee, Jr., Mecklenburg; Russell G.
Brown, Greg W. White, Northern Neck; Wade C. House, Stan C.
Feuerberg, Northern Virginia; Dale McNiel, Randell W. Meyers,
Powell Valley; Herbert R. Patrick, Micheal E. Malandro, Prince
George; Linda R. Gray, Kent D. Farmer, Rappahannock; Larry C.
Howdyshell, Michael W. Hastings, Shenandoah Valley; Frank W.
Bacon, Jeffrey S. Edwards, Southside.
To advertise in Cooperative Living, contact:
Amanda Cunningham (804) 290-2184
National Advertising Representative: AMP,
611 South Congress Ave., Suite 504,
Austin, Texas 78704 * 800-626-1181
Member of AMP network of
publications, reaching more than
9 million homes and businesses.
PRESSRUN . . . . . . . . . 527,748
COOPERATIVE LIVING (USPS 473-300) is
published 10 times a year, monthly except for
combined March/April and November/ December
issues, by the Va., Md. & Del. Association of Electric
Cooperatives. POSTMASTER, address changes
should be sent to: Cooperative Living, 4201
Dominion Boulevard, Suite 101, Glen Allen, VA
23060, (804) 346-3344. Periodicals Postage paid at
Glen Allen, VA, and additional mailing offices.
Subscription: $4.99 per year for members of
subscribing co-ops; $10 per year for all others.
ADVERTISING published is accepted on the
premise that the merchandise and services offered
are accurately described and willingly sold to
customers at the advertised price. Neither this
magazine nor the electric cooperatives in Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware endorses any products or
services advertised herein. If any readers encounter
non-compliance with these standards, they are
asked to inform the Editor.
F
or the 16th consecutive summer, we're
publishing in our July issue the best
entries in our youth art contest. Rising
Centreville fourth-grader Anika Karnam,
whose parents are members of NOVEC, rose
to the challenge of this year's theme - " my
favorite summertime activity " - by colorfully
capturing her love of snorkeling. Her best-ofshow
entry and those of the other grade
winners constitute this month's cover story.
Anika's illustration got me to thinking
about favorite activities and fond memories
from the long-ago summers of my youth in
the 1960s.
At the top of the list is the longest trip I had
ever taken, to Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1965,
with my mother, brother and grandparents, to
visit my uncle and aunt and their five
children. I remember the thrill of seeing for
the first time a rodeo, Native Americans and
(from my sleeping bag and unbeknownst to the
grownups) snippets of the scandalous TV show
based on the even-more-scandalous novel,
Peyton Place. Heady stuff for a 9-year-old boy.
The next summer, 1966, my parents, brother
and I ventured even farther afield, on a crosscountry
trip to Colorado. More than half a
century on, I still vividly remember the sky
there stretching to infinity, in a blue so pure
and pastel and intense that it seemed drawn
from the palette coloring the Caribbean waters
I had seen as I leafed through pages of
National Geographic magazines.
Fixed in my mind's eye too is the rugged
grandeur of Pike's Peak. The otherworldly
landscape of the Garden of the Gods. And
most of all, the Air Force Academy chapel.
While I now view it as both remarkably
modern and medieval at once, at the time I
saw it simply as the coolest building I had
ever seen (and it still may be).
Those two trips were fun ... lots of fun. And
not just because they were the longest by far
my family ever took, in duration and distance.
They were fun because we were experiencing
and enjoying new places together, as a family.
Other, shorter summertime trips were often
taken to the beaches of the Florida Panhandle,
to Pensacola or Panama City, where the aqua-blue
waters of the Gulf of Mexico would remind me
2
of that gorgeous blue forever-sky out West
in Colorado.
Memories abound from these family trips too.
Of swimming in the motel pool, after dark, the
recessed sidelights in the pool walls a surreal
reminder that the indulgence of a past-bedtime
swim was reserved only for family vacations,
only in summertime.
Of combing the blindingly white, sugary sands
of the Gulf Coast beaches for whole, intact
shells of all sizes and shapes, shells not beaten
and broken by the pounding surf, as they were
on the Atlantic Ocean side.
I have many fond memories also of far more
typical summer days, spent at home, in my yard,
in my neighborhood, with my friends, doing ...
well, doing everything we wanted, which
sometimes meant nothing at all.
Like packing a lunch in the morning and
being allowed to stay out all day, exploring the
woods and creek behind our modest tri-level
home outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
Or running through lawn sprinklers in our
bathing suits on scorching-hot afternoons.
Or punching holes in the lid of an empty jar, to
house the lightning bugs we would catch at twilight.
Or lying on the cool night grass, watching
stars shimmer, listening to tree frogs chirp.
Or playing hide-and-seek at night all over the
neighborhood, before being called home well
past our bedtime.
During those long days of summer long ago,
the outdoors was a moveable feast. Of discovery
and adventure. Of lessons in Mother Nature and
human nature, whether searching for salamanders
in a creek bed or settling close calls at home plate.
In our age of busy lives and hectic schedules,
it's hard to imagine a time when a lot of kids
had a lot more freedom during their summers. I
feel lucky to have been such a kid.
In our backyard baseball games, there was no
umpire. Catcher and batter would hash out
differences over ball and strike counts, and close
plays at the plate.
Because if we couldn't settle things
ourselves? Well, then, the grownups would
have gotten involved.
And that would have spoiled the most
magical thing of all about summertime.
Kids being kids. 
www.co-opliving.com
Summertime Magic
Remembering vacation trips with family ... and long, languid
days with boyhood friends, doing everything we wanted,
and sometimes nothing at all.
http://www.co-opliving.com http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living July 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living July 2018
