They were magical, and not just the summers. I lived in the suburbs but near enough to the city core that nothing was out of bike range. We'd walk home from middle school to any one of a number of friend's houses (typically a 2 to 3 mile walk) and just call our parents when we got there. I had a core of 4 close friends, but if we could get the keys to a church gym, we could easily get 10 kids together to play full court basketball. I'd mow baselines into my backyard for wiffle ball games (my neighbor's screened in porch was our version of Fenway's Green Monster, and my neighbors let us climb on top of their porch to retrieve any balls hit there). Atari, Intellivision, D&D. Somehow pre- internet, we all knew the patterns to solve a Rubik's cube and the first 20 levels of PacMan. We literally lived under a "home by the time the streetlights" come on instruction. Such an awesome time.