Summer Time

I am currently mid way through the first summer that I have spent exclusively in my hometown in almost 12 years. Although most of the time has been spent studying, and staring out the window when I should be studying, it has brought back a lot of good memories of summers past. We lived in a neighborhood full of children and friendly neighbors. So even when there was nothing special to do, there was always something to do. Exploration in the deep woods, riding bikes to forbidden locales, and playing outside until it was dark. Sadly, my 'little' isn't having that kind of summer.
I started to notice that he was inside everytime I called, but I was hesitant to believe that was the case all day everyday until I dropped in yesterday to see him. We spent most of the time talking about his latest pieces of art. I let him borrow a cartoon drawing book, and he's been hard at work trying to master some of the techniques. He asked me questions about different approaches to the cartoon human, and I showed him how to deal with hands and torsos, and clarified what the book was showing. All throughout this time I started asking about his daily activities for the past month. It turns out he IS actually staying in the house alone all day almost every day while his grandmother lays on the bed upstairs trying to stay cool. It's pretty sad, I had actually looked into some day programs before the summer started so we could prevent this sort of thing from happening. Obviously, I didn't find anything.

"So where are all of the other kids?"
They all moved away.

"How about your bike?"
It's broken.

"What about your cousins that I met that one time?"
They live too far away.

Quite sad, but since I'm very much in the books every day, living almost 40 minutes away, there's not a lot that I can do to improve his day to day right now. Makes me that much more pleased that I sprung him from Grandma's on the 4th of July a few weeks ago. We started the day with Go Karts at the local track, stopped by the cook out at my parent's house, and ended the day with a late showing of TRANSFORMERS. A great movie I must say. There's nothing quite as cool as seeing your old animated heroes on the big screen in live action. I was blown away by the fact that they used the same voice actor for Optimus Prime that they used 20 years ago on the cartoon. Jamal doesn't know much about the old show, but he really liked the movie and hung the poster up in his room.
I should have a week long break from all responsibility starting two weekends from now. That is, if I can get ready for this test in time. If I do, it will give me the chance to spend a lot of time with Jamal and possibly make this summer a little more memorable for him.