Even though it is 60°, I’m wearing a sweatshirt and socks. The house is so cold the butter hardened. The day is quite ugly. The sky is filled with clouds. It is an inside day.

I can hear a lawnmower disturbing the morning. A few cars went up my street. Somebody walked by the house. Henry barked. He always barks.

When I worked, Saturday was my chore day. I changed the bed and cleaned the house. I grocery shopped. Some Saturday nights I’d get together with friends. We’d eat and play games. Saturday has always been my favorite day.

When I was a kid, Saturday was the day to do whatever I wanted. On warm days I’d ride around. I never really had a destination. I’d ride by myself. None of my neighborhood friends were big on bike rides. My closest neighborhood friend didn’t even have a bike. I couldn’t imagine life without my bike, without the freedom of the ride. Nothing came close to the sound and feel of the wind as I rode down a hill as fast as I could. I’d take my feet off the pedals and hold my legs out. I’d let the hill propel me. It was as close as I came to flying.

I don’t like plain black licorice. I do like black jelly beans, Good and Plenty and black Necco Wafers. I used to buy a box of Good and Plenty for a nickel at the movie theater. Sometimes the pieces were stale. The outsides cracked when I bit them. I didn’t really mind, mostly because I had low standards. Candy is good almost no matter what. Besides, the stale pieces lasted longer than the fresh ones did. They were a workout for my jaw.

I remember eating TV dinners. They were a treat. The dinners came on aluminum foil divided sort of dishes and were baked. I remember chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and a cherry dessert. The package had a picture of the dinner on the front which looked delicious. The only thing I was keen about was the hot pie desserts.

The bookcase in my bedroom goes from side to side on one wall. It is plain wood. A friend build it maybe forty years or so ago. On it I keep, beside books, some treasures. The only Barbie doll I own is on the top shelf. Barbies came after my childhood. This one is a Ghanaian Barbie wearing Kente cloth, the handwoven cloth from Ghana. There are nostalgic pieces on the shelves like small plastic Howdy Doody, Mr. Bluster and Dilly Dally toys. A stuffed Mikey Mouse is there as are a few small tin toys. That filled bookcase is my of my favorite pieces of furniture because of those treasures and memories it holds.

This entry was posted on May 23, 2026 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.