The nights are chilly. In the morning the house is cold. It holds the night air. I have had to keep the back door shut because of the breeze, because the cool air is being blown down the hall to the den. Fall is in full swing.

The sunshine is sharper today. The breeze is so heavy everything constantly blows, turns, bends. We have a high wind warning and a coastal flooding warning. The nor’easter is close.

When I was a kid, I made memories without realizing they were being tucked away, saved in my memory drawers. Some have stayed hidden, but many have abruptly jumped into my head triggered by a smell or sight or sound. Yesterday we drove through the square of my hometown. My friend pointed at the shop where she got the best subs. We remembered Hank’s Bakery, and the smell of bread baking in Hank’s ovens which wafted through the square. I still see Hank’s though it has been gone a while. Woolworth’s and Grants disappeared a long time ago. I still lament the loss of Woolworth’s. Many of the old buildings, especially the banks, look the same but haven’t been banks for the longest time. I miss the old square with all its shops, with what seemed to be hundreds of pharmacies lining the street and with the people in stores and on the sidewalks carrying bags from their shopping. Every day the square lived.

Yesterday’s reunion was amazing. I hadn’t seen my old friends for decades, but we fit together as if we last saw each other yesterday. I think it is always that way with old friends with whom you have so many memories of growing up together, memories of events and places and things shared. We told funny stories. We laughed. We weren’t old for a while. We were back to then. We were retelling funny experiences and remembering people we haven’t seen for so long. One memory of when I was first in the drill team I found out one of my friends has the same memory. We were maybe around twelve and went to a party after a contest. It was my mention of the duplex where the party was, the one over fifty years ago, which triggered the memory of my friend from at the same party. Everyone else there was old, at least in our eyes. The guys shaved. The girls seemed so sophisticated, many in their late teens. Treva said she was so scared she stayed on the porch. I stayed in a corner, protected on three sides. I didn’t realize this memory stayed. I find it amazing, even strange, which memories, which happenings, get stored away for safe keeping in our memory drawers.

This entry was posted on September 24, 2026 at 1:33 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.