{"id":2016,"date":"2014-08-06T20:02:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T00:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2014-08-06T20:02:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T00:02:15","slug":"fathers-navy-hammock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2014\/08\/06\/fathers-navy-hammock\/","title":{"rendered":"Father’s Navy Hammock"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"reading<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine, if you will, growing up in an old-fashioned sort of family, in an old-fashioned sort of family`s back yard, with trees and grass and flower beds and a hammock strung between two maple trees in a far, shady corner. Imagine you and your friends, when no one else is around, swinging each other as high and as hard as you can, stopping only when one of you swings all the way around and ends up lying in a heap on the grass. – July 28, 1985|By Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Sentinel<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t exactly like that but damn close.\u00a0 My friends weren\u2019t really interested in my Father\u2019s old Navy hammock but I was.\u00a0 In the dog days of summer it was heaven on earth lying in the shade of the two maples with a book.\u00a0 Summers back then didn\u2019t seem nearly as hot.\u00a0 Our backyard had a lot of shade, a constant breeze and the old maple was always in motion, rustling, reaching for the sky.\u00a0 I could stay there for hours; my Mother always knew where I was and never bothered me.\u00a0 If I fell asleep in it, so be it.<\/p>\n

\"back<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been hearing lots of irritable remarks about the summer doldrums lately.\u00a0 I admit I\u2019m not a summer person but this summer seems more manageable to me somehow.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had a lot of rain and my garden isn\u2019t complaining a bit.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had cool mornings that are conducive to coffee on the deck, especially with the overhead fan whirring, which has been practically unheard of in summers past.<\/p>\n

\"099\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve become nostalgic for that hammock several times in my life.\u00a0 My first apartment (a hundred years ago) was a third floor walkup with no air conditioning. The coolest part of the place was my tiny guest bedroom, or as I called it my sewing room. I often fantasized about hanging the old hammock in that room, coming home from work, taking a cool shower and crawling into it with a book. If I fell asleep in it, so be it.<\/p>\n

Another time was in my first house.\u00a0 We had a hammock but it was woven rope and it never seemed as comfortable to me as the old canvas one I knew as a kid.\u00a0 It was a shame to have lost that poor thing to old age and rot.\u00a0 If I recall correctly it was my Grandfather who was the one who wound up falling through it.<\/p>\n

\"hooks<\/a><\/p>\n

By the time our family no longer had any ties to the old house the maples had grown over the hooks that held up the hammock and only the memories of it remained.\u00a0 There are days when the heat is high and the breeze is just enough that I would love to crawl back into that hammock and lose myself in a book.\u00a0 That\u2019s no longer an option but the memory of it serves as a reminder that summer is for using less energy, catching up on the slow things and enjoying obligatory lazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine, if you will, growing up in an old-fashioned sort of family, in an old-fashioned sort of family`s back yard, with trees and grass and flower beds and a hammock strung between two maple trees in a far, shady corner. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,466,6],"tags":[487,471,486,488],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fathers-daughter-moments","category-its-a-legacy-thing","category-pause-points","tag-fathers-old-hammock","tag-legacy-things","tag-summer","tag-summer-doldrums"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-ww","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}