It’s easily gathered that summer is a time of merriment for many

, and for others, fruition. I know some of my friends realized all too late that this summer was their last as adolescents. They wanted to eternally grasp summer before they ran into college at the corner of Yesterday and Tomorrow.

But summer didn’t feel that way for me. I was ready to free it from the jar my friends longed to contain it in.

Although I went on excursions through Colorado, being a mile just wasn’t for me. Mountains are just enormous hills. Colorado snow is Missouri snow. And thin air is hard to breath.

The highlight of my three, school-free months took place in my very own backyard. My mom, my step-dad, my three-year-old brother and I threw a Frisbee around for half an hour. Don’t double-take; you read that right: my family and I tossed a flimsy, neon disk around behind my house for half an hour.

It’s not that my summer wasn’t completely built out of full-fledged fantastical freedom, it’s just that my family’s Frisbee follies meant more to me.

For half an hour, my family was the closest it had ever been in its four years of existence. For 1,800 seconds, a Frisbee acted as an unknown, expedient therapist with the ability to bring my family together. For one forty-eighth of that day, the four of us were happy.

In retrospect, it was astonishing. Thirty minutes spent whizzing a green Frisbee around in my hilly backyard was all it took to make us close again. A seven-day trip to the top of the world wouldn’t have made us happy, but a clearance item from Walgreens had the power to reunite us.

Now, that’s a feeling I wouldn’t mind eternally grasping.