Pat Shingleton for Thursday, June 21, 2012

It’s the first “full” day of summer with an official welcome to summertime and numerous suggestions as to how to keep cool.

As noted previously, I remember my mother instructing me to “fill the washtub” so my brother Kevin would get a “cooldown” during some blistering weather in Pennsylvania.

That same washtub also was used to ice down beer and pop for summertime events. The washtub became obsolete when inflatable pools came along and another invention — the lawn sprinkler — offered another quick cooldown as we dashed through it.

As we got older, the Ewing Park swimming pool provided heat relief. One of the best gifts to the neighborhood was the decision by the Shultz and Lutz families to install backyard pools. Fastcast: Hot.