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On a hot July or August day years ago, was there anything more fun than blasting someone with a water pistol?
				Personally, I liked the small squirt guns best.
				The big ones held more ammo. But a smaller one could be kept hidden, maybe in your shirt, and you could take it out and attack your buddy when he least expected it, and that was really fun.
				So, as you got ready to bid school goodbye and prepare for another youthful summer, you had to make sure last year&rsquo;s squirter still worked. Failing that, you&rsquo;d have to convince mom or dad to fork over 15 cents or so for a new one &#8211; not always an easy sell.
				Preparing for vacation if you were a kid at mid-century, was a complex process, almost like launching a business start-up. You had to begin by May so that when school ended, you&rsquo;d be ready to roll &#8211; or squirt, or whatever.
				There were other steps to take. I couldn&rsquo;t get through a summer without a few 10-cent balsa wood gliders. But the glider pilot faced a problem as great as concealing a water pistol. No matter how religiously you&rsquo;d follow the instructions on the package to position the wings just so, the darned things hardly ever went where you wanted.
				Of course, if you could come up with 25 cents you could run down to the neighborhood variety store and pick up a top-of-the-line aeronautical product &#8211; a balsa plane with a wind-up propeller and pictures on the package of the thing sailing high above you.
				Generally, though, about all I did was escalate my disappointment. I&rsquo;d wind, wind, wind the propeller on the rubber band and then toss the thing bearing a name like Giant Supersonic Zoomer into the air.
				Taking off with a promisingly loud &ldquo;whirrrrrrr,&rdquo; it would then head unerringly for a tree across the street or maybe a neighbor&rsquo;s roof, there to rest forever.
				Even if you got it back, the plastic propellers had a brief life. Sisyphus probably had an easier time rolling his rock uphill than I did telling dad I needed a new Zoomer because it crashed into somebody&rsquo;s DeSoto.
				Actually, I was lucky. When I got something really good at Christmas &#8211; like a big plastic tommygun &#8211; I&rsquo;d put it away for summer.
				So it was that once school let out I was all set for cops and robbers or G-men versus the communists or something else like that. My gun made a huge racket and actually fired sparks. I loved it.
				My arsenal also included some metal cap guns (not the cheap plastic ones of today) that produced loud bangs and filled the air with acrid smoke. But you had to learn the trick of keeping up a steady rate of fire without going too fast and getting the roll all jammed up.
				After all, you couldn&rsquo;t have a U.S. Marshal suddenly disarmed and falling prey to a bunch of scoffing rustlers, could you?
				But, overall, I think the water pistols ruled as far as summer fun was concerned. Swimming pools and Sans Souci Park were fine in their way, but soaking somebody was glorious.
				Of course, you had to be careful. Once I hid on our porch and popped up to drench some folks I thought were my buddies sneaking up on me. Turned out it was two ladies on the way to Bingo at St. Pat&rsquo;s.
				At least I hadn&rsquo;t yelled something like &ldquo;take that, you filthy rats.&rdquo;
				Anyway, have a nice summer.

Remember When: Kids wanted to get ready for summer vacation