In those years, summers seemed endless.   There was enough time to do—or not do—everything in those summers.   September and the end of summer vacation was so far away, it was just a meaningless abstraction.   We’d walk or ride our bikes to the nearby park and see if there were enough kids around to play a game or just work-up.   The problem in summer was that kids would go away on vacation with their folks, and often there weren’t enough kids for an actual game.   If we did get as many of three, we could play in Neal’s back yard; one to pitch, one to catch, and one to swing the bat. (We weren’t allowed to use a real hardball in the back yard; the dimensions were too small and the risk too great of breaking a neighbor’s window.   We’d use a rubberized softball or a wiffle ball. [ 11 ] Marvel of 1950s plastics engineering Lots of times it was just Neal and me; we’d play catch for hours in his front yard; that was best, for if a ball went wide or high, it woul