I woke up to rain. It was heavy at times then stopped. The sun came out but the clouds returned. It is a warm day at 55°. Light rain is predicted.

Everywhere I walk in this house clumps of dust mixed with dog hair fly in front of me. I need to clean, but my sloth holds sway. I’ve decided I want the same deal as the Grimm shoemaker. He had no money and no customers and only enough leather for one pair of shoes. He left the shoe pieces on his workbench and went to bed. He figured he’d finish in the morning. When he woke up, the pieces had been sewn into a beautiful pair of shoes. They sold right away, and he was able to buy more leather. He left those pieces. They too were made into shoes, beautiful shoes. The next night he and his wife hid and watched as two elves stitched the leather and made shoes. Those sold at a great price. There is more but not much more to the story. I’m thinking I should leave the vacuum, the polish and dust cloths out. Maybe when I wake up, the house will be clean.

Mrs. McGaffigan lived in the big house on the bottom corner of my street. We shared a party line. We each had separate rings so we knew to whom the call was directed. The phone had no dial My brother and I used to listen to her. We’d pick up the handset and listen. We tried not to breathe but she’d hear us and yell. We’d put the handset right down and laugh. We got a rotary phone. No longer could we be entertained by Mrs. McGaffigan.

When I was in the first grade, I learned to print. I was taught small letters and capital letters. I always used a pencil because of the eraser. Penmanship was one of our subjects and was listed on the report card. We either got an S for satisfactory, an NI for needs improvements or a U for unsatisfactory. It was in the second grade when we started to learn cursive. First we practiced writing exercises. We had to draw things like interlocking circles and straight up lines in a slant. My circles were never good. They were sort of short and long in the same line. I remember my hand rested on the paper and the side of my hand blurred the letters. Cursive wasn’t easy. We had a card of each letter around the outside of the black board. The card had the capital letter and the small letter. We practiced during penmanship. By the third grade, we never used printed letters again.

When I was in the ninth grade, I had to learn to print all over again. We all took the national Latin exam and only printing was allowed. I loved the irony.

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