My membership in the society of sloths is under review. Yesterday I swept, washed and waxed the kitchen floor. I cleaned everything on the counter. I washed and waxed the hall floor. I grocery shopped. I cooked an actual dinner. It was an exhausting day.

The morning is still nighttime chilly. The day will be a bit cooler than it has been. We’ll stay in the 60’s. The sun will hang round all day. My backyard is lovely. The light shines through the leaves of the oak trees, and the leaves on the small branches flutter in the breeze. It is my perfect sort of day.

When I was a kid, I always felt safe. I wandered my town without fear. My mother had given me the speech about strangers and not taking candy. I didn’t understand the need for it until that time in the subway. I know I’ve written about this before, but it is still such a vivid memory that every now and then it comes to light. I was with my brother and my uncle, who was a couple of years older than I. We were going to the pool near the Museum of Science. We took the subway. In the station I waited for the train sort off to the side by myself. They waited for the train a bit away. A man approached me. I remember he wore a hat, a sort of boater. He had rotten teeth. He spoke sweetly and offered me candy. It took only a split second for my mother’s warning to pop into my head then I ran to my brother and uncle. I told them about the man. They didn’t believe me. I never told anyone else.

My high school graduation was outside in front of the school. We were the first to go outside. The boys wore green gowns while the girls wore white. We sat in front, and the boys were in the back. The speaker was a bit boring. He was from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. The sign with Class of 1965 fell from where it was hanging on the front of the school and hit a classmate and knocked him off the bleacher in the back. We all knew as the word was spread. He was fine and got up on his seat again. It was the only excitement. We got our diplomas and marched out. Each girl was given a red rose. The last thing was turning in our robes as they had been rented. Next year will be the 60th anniversary of my high school graduation.

This entry was posted on June 4, 2024 at 1:20 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.