“Home is the nicest word there is.”
The morning is lovely. It is still cool in the house from last night. The blue sky stretches across without a single cloud. The sun is bright. Nothing is moving. The day will be hot, in the 80’s. I have no errands or chores to do. I have been busy. The deck flowers are all planted and the deck is clean of debris. I declare today a well-deserved sloth day. I’m thinking I’ll just stay on the deck and read the day away.
When I was a kid, I had everything I needed. For winter I had ice skates and a sled. For summer I had roller skates, the kind you tightened to your shoes, and my bike. The ice skates were easy, just put them on, tighten and skate, but my roller skates sometimes came loose, usually only one at a time, so I had to keep lifting my foot and the skate until I could sit, usually on the curb, and reattach the skate. I learned sneakers didn’t hold the skates too well so I wore my old school shoes. I used to skate on the parking lot at the top of the hill, but if I was brave, I’d ride down the hilly sidewalk. Grass bordered the sidewalk on both sides so when I fell, and fell I did, the grass cushioned my fall.
When I moved into my house, my mother brought down some treasures for me. One was a small chair my father’s uncle had made for me. My mother told me I was three when he gave it to me. It is still in my bedroom. I have three Fanny Farmer chicken egg cups, two have broken beaks. My mother used to make soft-boiled eggs for our breakfasts. She’d toast bread and cut it so the pieces were just the right size to dip into the eggs cradled in those egg cups. She also brought down my books: my Bobbsey Twins, my Trixie Beltons, my Nancy Drews and some of the classics I loved to read like Heidi, Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and my all time favorite, The Wind in the Willows. I bought a bookcase and filled it with those treasures. That’s when my house became my home.
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July 30, 2022 at 7:05 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is the day that broke the triple digit streak of 33 days. The sky is partly cloudy and some localized, small, portions of the vast North Texas area is getting small pop up showers or thunderstorms. Unfortunately, non of them has strayed over my house. Currently DFW airport, the official weather reporting station, is only at 99°. As I was writing this I noticed that the temperature dropped to 98°. It hasn’t rained at the airport, or at my house since June 4th.
When I was a kid my dad installed a concrete patio in the back yard. He had the contractor make the slab very smooth so that my sister and I could roller skate on the patio. We spent hours going round and round the patio on our skates. The skates were attached to our shoes with grips that we tightened with a skate key.
July 30, 2022 at 10:04 pm
Hi Bob,
I’m sure you have never been happier to have a streak end. Sorry that the rain has stayed away, but it is the same here. I don’t remember the last time we had rain. When I was watching the Red Sox actually win one the other night, it was raining at Fenway when the game ended.
There is no rain in the forecast.
Those are the type of skates I was talking about in my musings when I wrote, “the kind you tightened to your shoes.” I forgot to mention the key which I kept around my neck.
That was neat, the skating patio in your yard!