The morning is cloudy and windy but light and warm. It is already 58° and could actually hit 60°. That sounds almost tropical. I think I might just sit on the deck for a while and take in the day. I’ll watch the goldfinches at the thistle feeders.

When I was a kid, my bicycle was the best Christmas present I ever received. It was blue. It had a wire basket in front. It was my chariot. I rode it until the first snow. It was kept in the cellar. Putting it in and taking it out was difficult. The cellar was at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and a tall concrete wall was in front of the cellar door. I had to lift the bicycle so it was on one wheel outside the door in order to turn it to the stairs. That always took a bit of maneuvering. Pulling it up the stairs was the last obstacle to riding, to hitting the road. Despite everything, though, I always thought my bike was worth the effort. 

I remember in the fifth grade we were bussed to the next town over. They had empty classrooms. We didn’t have enough room so for half a year we were bussed while a new school building was being built catty corner to the old school. We used to line up on the driveway beside the church to wait for the busses. Each bus had a nun monitor. Our monitor was my fifth grade nun. She sat on the back seat as she was a hefty nun who needed room. It wasn’t a long bus ride. I remember  reading Little Women on the ride. I don’t remember much else.

We always ate white bread, Wonder Bread. I didn’t even knew other breads existed. I remember lunches and how the middle of the bread in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich sometimes got a bit soggy and sank. Jelly seeped through, purple Welch’s grape jelly. It was the only jelly my mother bought. We had a lot of jelly glasses.

My father was a coffee drinker, an instant coffee drinker by choice. My mother didn’t drink coffee or tea. She used to drink Coke in the morning. We called my mother the seagull. She used to eat cold hot dog sandwiches, sometimes with cucumbers. She’d slice the hot dog so it would fit into a sandwich. I remember seeing her stand by the counter to eat. She didn’t like coffee but she loved biscotti dipped in coffee. A tuna melt was one of her favorite sandwiches. She loved the lunch counter at Woolworth’s. 

Yesterday I overreached. I went to my uke concert. Last night I was exhausted and went to bed early for me. My chest is a bit sore today. I’m going to take it easy.

This entry was posted on April 19, 2025 at 11:36 am 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.