Today is sunny and cloudy and sunny again. It is warm at 79°. The air is thick and still. I don’t hear anything, not even a bird. Nala is napping on the couch while Henry is napping on the floor by the back door. My house is dark. I can feel a bit of air coming from the north window. Tonight will again get down to the 50’s.

My life has been interesting. When I was a kid, that is what I hoped my life would be. I wanted to travel, to see the world. It didn’t matter where I traveled, just traveling would be enough. I did figure Europe would be first, probably England and maybe Ireland. That, of course, didn’t happen. Ghana was my first stop.

I remember much of my life in moments. On a Sunday in January 1969, I remember answering the door, getting a special delivery letter and bounding up the stairs to my apartment where I tore it open while I was standing in the living room right in front of the TV. That was the moment I got my Peace Corps letter.

When I was graduating from high school, they gave out scholarships during the ceremony. I was called up twice. I remember my father sort of sitting up off his chair mouthing to me, “How much?” That was one moment. My mother made chicken parmigiana for the party after graduation. That was another.

During baccalaureate, when I was a senior in college, I was part of the communion procession. I don’t remember what I carried, but I do remember hearing my father’s cough. He had a distinctive, smoker’s cough, and I recognized it right away. I was happy to know he was there.

I was confirmed when I was in the sixth grade. I wore a white gown with a red collar and red beanie. We had practiced our roles. I remember one moment of that ceremony. The nun had warned us about the slap. The bishop would lightly slap us to symbolize we were now soldiers of Christ. I knelt on the red kneeler in front of the altar. The bishop went from one to another of us slapping our cheeks and saying, “Peace be with you,” I remember being a little nervous, but the slap barely made an impression. They don’t slap any more.

I remember during my first two weeks of Peace Corps training my language instructor took us to a market. The first table I saw had round, dark balls on it. Lawal, my language instructor, told us the balls were dried goat dung which would be used as fuel. That disgusted me. I ran out of the market and threw up in the sewer. I remember a crowd watching me. A few weeks later, a friend and I were chatting while standing on a board across an open sewer. I didn’t notice. The goat dung fiasco was a moment in what seemed eons ago. Market day in my town was my favorite day, and they sold goat dung balls.

This entry was posted on July 24, 2026 at 2:14 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.