Wind talk

"Dead vines old trees faint, air-conditioned WiFi watermelon. Ge You sofa, sunset. I will go there. "

It was summer, and a child working in the south sent me a photo of her summer vacation. Although fun, it is enough to show that the weather is hot.

Air conditioning, WiFi and watermelon (including all kinds of iced drinks) seem to be the standard for people (especially young people) to spend summer, which reminds me of the standard when I was a child, as well as those interesting things about rivers, reed mats and banana fans.

I spent my childhood in a small village in Linyi City, Shandong Province. The summer in my memory doesn't seem so hot, perhaps because I soak in the river every day.

There is a river flowing from east to west in front of our village. When the water level does not rise, the river is knee-deep and crystal clear. There is a long and narrow place full of reeds in the middle of the river. This river is a natural bathing place for people in our village.

Children spend half their time playing in the river all summer. At that time, children learned to swim when they were about five or six years old. Like me, the stupidest person can also be the "dog digger", so that children can soak in the water every day and adults don't have to worry.

There are all kinds of small fish swimming around in the river. There is also a yellowish clam in the sand at the bottom of the river. The biggest clam is only as big as a big peanut. We call it little honey clam, and it's easy to catch. We use an iron sieve to dig the sand at the bottom of the river into the sieve, then pick it up and wash it in the river. After a while, the sand disappeared, and the little honey clam remained in the sieve. Sometimes a sieve can catch two.

I remember when I was not in primary school, I often went to play with my neighbor's little brother and sister. Older children will play a game called "catching fish" in the water, that is, a child with good water will play the role of "fish" and others will catch him. Generally speaking, children who play with fish are highly skilled swimmers. He swam ahead, and his captors also had a division of labor. Some are responsible for pursuit, and some are responsible for containment. If caught, they will go to the shore to bask in "fish".

Sometimes I can't catch the "fish" with excellent water quality for a long time, but when I finally surrounded him, he plunged like a loach and slipped out of the water easily. After a while, he will lean out his little head from other places and make faces at everyone, making his captors laugh and cry.

At night, the river will be more lively. Adults who came back from the fields also came to the river to take a bath in twos and threes. Because there is a large reed in the river, this reed naturally becomes the isolation zone of men and women's "bathing place", with men on one side and women on the other, washing away the dirt and the summer heat of the day. After the adults came, we children became even crazier, splashing and even having a water fight directly. Adults also tease children, grab them and throw them into the water. The children who were caught were also happy, laughing and laughing, and the whole river was full of laughter.

Grandpa Sun was finally tired and secretly sank into the horizon. After a day's work, the summer heat was washed away, and the adults led their children home for dinner one after another. After dinner, everyone will invariably pick up their reed mats or straw mats and go to the roadside to enjoy the cool, which opens another scene full of fireworks.

"The heat in the evening is still the same as that in the afternoon. Open the door and stand in the middle of the moon. "

Summer in my hometown is like this. Because of the small temperature difference between day and night, the night in the hottest period is as hot as day at the beginning, and you can't go into the house to sleep directly after dinner. I must cool off outside and then go into the house, otherwise it will be difficult to sleep.

After dinner, the neighbors all went outside to enjoy the cool by the roadside. Because of the shelter of the courtyard wall, the wind is not easy to penetrate, so everyone gathers on the road nearest to their home, and they all bring mats or straw mats that can be laid on the ground, so it is very convenient to sit and lie down.

I remember reed mats are often used in my family, because straw mats made of cattail are warmer and cooler than reed mats.

It must have been us children when we first came out. The three of us get together in pairs to play, some chase the hidden cat, and some "bounce" (a kind of glass ball) by moonlight. In short, they chirp louder than cicadas in trees.

When the adults came out after cleaning up the housework, most of the children were crazy and tired, lying on the mat looking at the stars one by one. At that time, most men in Dongzhuang West Village were smoking cigarettes and chatting about various rumors. At that time, there were no mobile phones and few radios, let alone televisions. Only the radio box that can hear the outside news plays regularly every day, and news that many people don't understand is often broken. The way people get "news" is "chatting" after dinner, which is also our communication.

The men "chatted" with relish, while the women each gave themselves a cattail leaf fan to fan the children lying on the mat. Slowly, we children entered the sweet dream land in the cool breeze flying out of the mother's hand.

At that time, the banana fan was an indispensable artifact in summer, just like today's air conditioner. I remember going to the market with my mother once, and she bought three banana fans. Because they cost 40 cents each and three for one dollar, she bought three, which should be very extravagant at that time. When I came back, my mother wrapped the edge of the fan with strips of cloth, saying it was so durable. After wrapping, my mother put away two fans and only gave my father a new fan. She and her sisters are still using the old ones that have been used for several years.

One summer, no matter in the dim light or in the chirping cicadas, my mother kept shaking the banana fan, which cooled the hot summer and shocked my childhood.

The role of the banana fan is not only to cool off the wind, but also to fight mosquitoes. At that time, there were many mosquitoes, and I don't remember anything like mosquito-repellent incense. I only remember that I lit the mosquitoes indoors with dried wormwood and outdoors with weeds at night. For those mosquitoes that are close to us, most of them take pictures with banana fans. Whenever they are enjoying the cool outside, if there is a "poop-poop" sound, it must be sending mosquitoes to Elysium.

The best way to shoot mosquitoes is to use the soft and collapsed banana fan that has been used for several years. When it comes into contact with mosquitoes, it will stick together tightly and will not stand up. If it is a new banana fan, it will let mosquitoes slip away. These are all secrets my mother taught me. It's a pity that I haven't practiced it until now, but I am also very grateful to my mother, because I have benefited a lot from what she taught me all my life, and I have never practiced it.

Late at night, the indoor temperature dropped a little, and people became cool. Everyone went back to the house with their sleeping children in their arms.

So far, the river, the reed mat and the banana fan have long since withdrawn from my summer life, but I will always miss my childhood summer, the river full of laughter, the reed mat that put me to sleep, the banana fan that brought cool breeze, and those powerful hands that kept shaking the banana fan for my summer night sleep.

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