The day is stunningly lovely. It is sunny. The leaves glint in the light. The birds are singing. It is 74°. It won’t get much warmer. The heat starts tomorrow when we may even finally get some rain.

My mother had a wringer washing machine. She didn’t have a dryer. The backyard had clothes lines for both sides of the duplex. My mother had three long lines. A cloth holder hung on one line. It held the wooden clothespins. I remember how she used to hang the clothes. To save on clothespins, shirts were connected at the bottoms while sheets and towels were connected at the tops. Pants were hung by their legs. Some of our neighbors had metal pant forms which hung the pants folded. I guess it made ironing easier. In the winter the clothes froze, sometimes straight out as if they were being blown by the wind. My mother couldn’t fold those clothes. She left them in the cellar until the ice melted. She’d hurry outside to take down the clothes if it started to rain then she would hang them in the cellar to finish drying. I remember the towels were always a bit rough, but the sheets smelled of outside, of fresh air and the wind.

I have a huge number of paper grocery bags. The grocery store double bags. I use the bags to hold my recyclables like dog food cans, newspapers and magazines. I like the ones with the paper strap holders. When I was a kid, we used them as book covers for our school loaned books. First you cut the bag apart then you lay the book on it to measure. You had to make sure you had enough paper to make the folds, the parts that slide onto the book ends. Sometimes we’d tape the folds at top. The finished covers had folds in the front. I didn’t know anyone who ever bought a book cover.

I have to vacuum today. The dust balls are beginning to come alive or maybe it is just my imagination because they move. They sort of skip up and down the hall when the wind blows. My outside uke concerts begin today on the Hyannis village green. I also have a concert on Saturday from 7 to 9. I have nothing in between, no practice or lesson this week. It will be a quiet week.

Today is sunny. The temperature is only 75° but feels much hotter. It is Sunday quiet. I can hear only a single bird. Even the hums of insects sound quiet and uninspired. I’m sitting in my dark den. It is always the coolest room in the house as the windows face west and north. I have a dump run planned for today but nothing else. I am embracing the feel of Sundays of my childhood.

When I was a kid, I was never squeamish. I caught grasshoppers. I picked up garter snakes. A praying mantis could hold my attention for what seemed hours. They looked prehistoric to me. I think a giant version starred in a black and white science fiction movie and ate people and destroyed towns. If you were afraid of bugs or snakes in Ghana, you were doomed. My childhood had prepared me though a centipede did take me back a bit.

On Sunday mornings, we got to have donuts. My father usually brought a dozen home after his ushering duties at the early mass. I remember his favorite was a plain donut slathered with butter. Back then I ate jelly donuts and had perfected eating one without the jelly oozing through the hole. It was when I was much older that my father made bacon and eggs for me for breakfast. His sunny side up eggs always had unbroken yokes.

I stayed close to home on summer Sundays. My bike stood outside in the back yard waiting for Monday and new adventures. I’d read the comics in the paper. Sometimes I’d watch the afternoon movie matinees. They were movies kids could could watch. My favorite was Treasure Island. I was pulled in by the arrival of Billy Bones and his black spots. I still remember how horrified I was to find out that Long John Silver was a treacherous pirate.

My mother seldom used the oven to cook Sunday dinner. The kitchen was small and held the heat. We often had corn on the cob and, if we begged enough, my mother made peppers and eggs as the main course. From the grill, cheeseburgers were my favorites. They were topped with yellow American cheese. I used ketchup on them back then. I never turned down a hot dog in a toasted bun.

My dance card is pretty empty this week. I don’t even have my uke practice or lesson. Our first concert on the green in Hyannis is tomorrow at 5:30. On Saturday we are playing from 7 to 9 in front of the Kennedy Museum in Hyannis. For the rest of the week, my sloth will reign supreme.