Today I am Rip Van Winkle and that scholar who used to come at ten o’clock scholar but now comes at noon. I had not so great a night so I slept in, way in. I didn’t get up at noon, but it was close.

We have another pretty day today. Out my den window, I can see blue sky in between the leaves and the branches of the oaks and pines. Every now and then a leaf flutters. It will be a hot, humid day in the low 80’s. Tonight could be as low as 69˚.

When I was a kid, it was the best time to be a kid. I had my bike, my transportation around the world, around my small world anyway. I’d take off for the day with no destination in mind. If I packed a lunch, my mother knew I’d be out most of the day, but that’s all she knew. I never called with updates. I had no dime. Besides, I’d never have wasted a dime on a phone call. That was candy store or ice cream or Hostess money, a Suzy-Q or those chocolate cupcakes covered in chocolate frosting with the line of white squiggles across the top and with cream in the middle. They were enticing because there were two of them. I kept my lunch in the wire basket attached to the front of my bike. Sometimes the lunch bag fell out, but a sandwich can take falls just not feet. I never knew what time it was. I just knew when I was hungry. I’d park my bike, grab my lunch and eat it in the shade of a tree. I’d sit with my back resting on the trunk.

After lunch, I’d ride around some more. Where I went depended on where I ate lunch. I had routes I’d often take. On one side of town, I never biked beyond Weiss Farm and the cows. The zoo and the pool were other boundaries, the far reaches of my world. I didn’t bike to the other ends of town too much, the two ends with golf courses.

When I go to my old town, I often drive these routes I used to take. The pool and zoo are still around. The farm cows are gone but the farm is there. It’s boring now. All the small stores where I’d spend a dime are also gone. The phone booths with the dial phones are only memories. Bikes are in now but most don’t have wire baskets. Hostess cupcakes look and taste the same, but now, all these years later, they’re a dollar or more for a single package of two, but I’m thinking that’s a deal. I can’t remember the last time I had one, but now I have a hankering.

This entry was posted on August 1, 2020 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.