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The humidity is oppressive. The air is so damp every surface feels a bit wet. A slight breeze just pushes around the thick air. The house is dark. Unsurprisingly, rain is predicted. It is 74° making the air feel a bit chilly. Tonight will again go down into the 60’s. June’s weather is quirky.

The dogs and I have a morning ritual. When I stir, they greet me with kisses. They get pats and scratches then leave to wait for me on the stairs. If I don’t come, they return to bed. If I do, we all go downstairs where they wait at the door for me to open it. I put the coffee on and get the newspaper. Yes, I still read the newspaper. I love reading it and doing all the word puzzles. When they are done outside, Henry waits at the door for me to open it, and Nala strolls in on her own. They get treats, a dog biscuit each and one other small treat. I take my coffee to the den and read the paper. The dogs nap. There is comfort in rituals.

I found The Mona Lisa disappointing. She was dark and tiny. David was impressive, every part of him. I was amazed to walk inside Notre Dame, but I was dazzled by the walls of stained glass windows in Sainte-Chapelle. They were jaw dropping. I had dinner at the Eiffel Tower. The views of the city from every window were amazing. Though the show was all in French, I enjoyed the music. It was winter when I arrived in Rio. Copacabana Beach was desolate. I took two cable cars to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain in Brazil. From the top I could see the city and beyond. I remember seeing a submarine heading toward the harbor. Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain was exactly as I had hoped. It was the picture in my geography book of the back of the statue with its arms extended. The statue stood at the top of a tall mountain from which you could see Sugarloaf and the city spread below.

Africa never disappointed me. I think it was because I didn’t know what to expect, and everything I saw was like nothing I had ever seen before. The first morning after my arrival I stood outside my room on the second floor and could see the ocean, palm trees and family compounds with rusted metal roofs and smoke rising above them. I heard sounds I couldn’t identify. I could smell the thick greenery. Everything felt unreal, almost dreamlike. I stood there for a while taking in the first of what would be the most amazing experiences in my life.

The weather is perfect. It is 79° and sunny, but the breeze is strong and cooling. The leaves seem to dance, a gyration, a spinning up and down. The nights have been perfect for sleeping, down to the 60’s. If I could control the weather, this is the day I’d make.

I have a black and white picture of me standing against a tree. I remember it was taken the summer we vacationed on Islesboro, Maine. We stayed in a secluded house close to the water. There was a short pier and a rowboat upside down on the sea grass. I was ten. The angle of the picture makes me look tall, exaggeratedly tall. I am wearing shorts, a blouse and a visor, a white visor. I wore that visor every day that summer. I loved it. I wore it everywhere, inside and outside, which is strange as I never really liked hats. Having to go to church was painful enough but having to wear a hat to go made it even worse. Perfect irony is I now have a hat collection, and I have several baseball type caps. I think of those caps as the ancestors of my visor.

I have seen so many wonders. When I was a kid, the wonders came every day. I remember walking to school and seeing small sheets of thin ice over puddles. Crystals shined from the ice. Sometimes I could see the reflection of the sun, blurred and small. In the winter, the dew froze on the grass. I loved the cracking sound when I walked across the lawn, across my father’s lawn. The colors of the trees in fall were amazing, red and yellow and orange. We ironed the leaves in wax paper to preserve the color. I’d cut the paper around the leaves to use as bookmarks. They were forever fall. The sidewalk on the way to school was overhung with branches. I remember the buds of the leaves at the start of spring sprouting from those branches. They were furled. I watched the buds grow into tiny leaves then get big enough to shadow the sidewalk. The murmuring of voices on summer nights carried from house to house. I’d sit on my back steps and listen. They sounded almost ethereal.

I have seen many wonders in my travels, but I expected to see them. It is the unexpected which still stops me to look, to hold and to wonder. Wow is all I can say when the sky at sunset is covered with reds, oranges and pinks. The colors seem to dazzle. Morning fog draws me to the deck. Birds singing to greet the day still makes me smile.

I am glad I still see the miracles of every day.

Yesterday it finally rained. Today it will rain again. The house is dark. Last night I lit all the white lights in the living room and the pepper and clam lights in the kitchen. I am comforted by the coziness the lights give the rooms.

I love the sound of rain, the way it pelts the windows and the roof. When I was a kid, on a rainy day, I’d lie in my bed, read and listen to the rain. It surrounded me. Out my window I could see the slant of the rain. If some drops came through my window, my mother always made me shut it. I did, reluctantly.

I had my uniform for every summer day. I wore a sleeveless blouse, shorts and sneakers. The sneakers were originally white. I’d dress in the morning, eat my cereal then spend all day exploring. I remember once we happened upon a small pond and a handmade wooden raft was beside it. We launched the raft and used a stick to pole it. One end of the raft was under the water so we all stood crowded at the other end. I was Huckleberry Finn rafting down the river. My sneakers got soaked, and I cut my hand on the stick pole, but I didn’t really mind. It was an adventure. I’d explore not only the familiar woods near my house but also the woods further on, foreign lands. Sometimes because of the heat and the distance, I’d get so exhausted I’d just fall into bed still wearing my clothes. My mother never objected. I did take off my sneakers.

Summer has such bounty. Sugar corn on the cob was my favorite. I’d slather the ear with butter and sprinkle on the salt. I used the typewriter technique to eat the corn, to go from row to row. I’d take a short breath and keep moving. I’d clear the cob with award worthy precision.

The traveling I have done has taught me to try new things. I eat local dishes. Some of them had ingredients I never imagined I’d eat. One was Guinea pigs in Ecuador. I ate the traditional dish at a small restaurant in a little town. The meal was delicious once I got beyond it was Guinea pig. I have eaten goat so many times it is now just a regular food for me. I find it bony. Mostly I have eaten it in soup. I ate reindeer in Finnish Lapland during midnight sun time. It was domestically raised so it didn’t have that gamey taste. I’d mention the blinking red nose but that sounds a bit sacrilegious. It was in Africa where I palate got so expanded food was a great adventure.

My dance card is uke heavy as usual. I have practice tonight, the John Denver book, my lesson tomorrow morning and two concerts, songs of the sea music. Our first Monday night outside concert is next week. It is getting summer busy.

This is my annual Father’s Day post, long but not even close to being long enough to tell you about my father, my amazing father, my funny and loving father. It brings back a rush of memories every time I read it. It makes me laugh and smile and long for my father. He was one of a kind in the best of all possible ways. This morning, as soon as I woke up, I wished him a Happy Father’s Day, and the memories came flooding in

I have so many memories of growing up, of family trips and my dad trying to whack at us from the front seat and never succeeding, of playing whist in the kitchen, with the teams being my mom and me against my dad and brother, of Sunday rides, of going to the drive-in and the beach and of being loved by my dad. Memories of my dad are with me always, but today all my memories are of my dad, and my heart is filled to the brim with missing him. When I close my eyes, I see him so clearly.

On a warm morning he’d be sitting on the front steps with his coffee cup beside him while reading the paper. He’d have on a white t-shirt and maybe his blue shorts. He’d wave at the neighbors going by in their cars. They all knew him and would honk back. He loved being retired, and we were glad he had a few years of just enjoying life.

He was the funniest guy, mostly on purpose but lots of times by happenstance. We used to have Dad stories, all those times when we roared and he had no idea why. He used to laugh along with us and ask, “What did I say? What did I say?” We were usually laughing too hard to tell him. He was a good sport about it.

I know you’ve heard this before, but it is one of my favorite Dad stories. He, my mom and I were in Portugal. I was driving. My dad was beside me. On the road, we had passed many piggyback tandem trucks, all hauling several truck loads behind them. On the back of the last truck was always the sign Vehiculo Longo. We came out of a gas station behind one of those. My father nonchalantly noted, “That guy Longo owns a lot of trucks.” I was laughing so hard I could barely drive and my mother, in the back seat, was doubled over in laughter.

My father wasn’t at all handy around the house. Putting up outside lights once, he gave himself a shock which knocked him off his step-ladder. He once sawed himself out of a tree by sitting on the wrong end of the limb. The bookcase he built in the cellar had two shelves, one on the floor and the other too high to use. He said it was lack of wood. When painting the house once, the ladder started to slide, but he stayed on his rung anyway with brush in hand. The stroke of the paint on the house followed the path of his fall. Lots of times he set his shoe or pant leg on fire when he was barbecuing. He was a big believer in lots of charcoal lighter fluid.

My father loved games, mostly cards. We played cribbage all the time, and I loved making fun of his loses, especially if I skunked him. When he won, it was superb playing. When I won, it was luck. I remember so many nights of all of us, including aunts and uncles, crowding around the kitchen table playing cards, especially hi-lo jack. He loved to win and we loved lording it over him when he lost.

My father always said he never snacked, and my mother would roll her eyes. He kept chocolate, those miniature bars, under the couch, hidden from everyone else, but, we, everyone else, knew. He loved Pilot Crackers covered with butter. Hydrox was his preferred cookie. His vanilla ice cream was always doused with Hershey’s syrup. That man did love his chocolate.

My father always went out Sunday mornings for the paper and for donuts. He never remembered what kind of donut I like. His favorite was plain with butter. He’d make Sunday breakfast when I visited: bacon, eggs and toast. I can still see him standing over the frying pan on the stove with a dish towel over his shoulders. He always put me in charge of the toast.

If I ever needed anything, I knew I could call my father. He was generous. When we went out to eat, he always wanted to pay and was indignant when we’d one up him by setting it up ahead of time that one of us paid instead. One Christmas he gave us all $500.00, not as a gift but to buy gifts.

My father left us when he was far too young. It was sudden. He had a heart attack. I had spoken with him just the day before. It was pouring that day, and I told him how my dog Shauna was soaked. He loved that dog and told me to wipe his baby off. I still remember that whole conversation. I still miss my father every day. 

The beautiful weather continues. It is sunny and 73°. The afternoon will get hotter, up to 77°, but the breeze keeps the feel of the heat at bay. I’m planning on a slow day. I have a couple of house chores but nothing too strenuous. I have an errand, a quick one. I expect to be napping by two.

Saturday has always been my favorite day of the week. When I was a kid, it was exploration day in the warm weather and movie matinee day in the cold. I rode in the summer and mostly walked in the winter. Uptown wasn’t very far. It was the center of my town and had just about any store or shop you might need. The exception was the First National. It was down the street from the square but still on Main Street. We once had a pet store next to Santoro’s sub shop. I bought a chameleon there. It didn’t last very long.

I was born in my town. It was called The New England Sanitarium and Hospital back then. It closed in 1999. It sits atop the hill where the first hospital was built in 1899. It looks a bit creepy now. Some of the windows still have inside window coverings.

I was never scared much when I was a kid. My father’s stories of the man with a hook had me looking behind me if I walked alone at night, but I was young. I really didn’t expect to see anything. I was just being cautious. I have never believed in ghosts. I don’t think of graveyards at night as scary. I used one as a shortcut when I was in high school. Nothing ever jumped out at me. I never believed anything hid under my bed or in my closet. Nothing unearthly moved in the dark. We did like to scare each other by jumping out of closets or screaming at one another when it was least expected. I did jump. I always laughed after.

The day is wonderful. It is 74° which will be the high today. Tonight will go down to the mid 60’s, perfect for sleeping. It is breezy. Clouds are predicted but no rain. I have more house chores today. I seem to be on a cleaning frenzy. I hope it passes quickly.

When I was a kid, summer didn’t start on any date. It started when school ended. The last day of school was a half day. We returned text books, cleared out our desks and got our final report cards. When we were let loose, it was a cacophony of screaming, of pushing each other to get out the door. We’d run down the pathway papers in hand. We were filled with the joys of freedom and of summer hopes and expectations.

In Ghana, school holiday also started in June. Buses usually waiting in the lorry park to fill with passengers came to the school to pick up students heading south. Trunks were loaded on the tops of the buses. I remember students with their heads and arms out the windows screaming goodbyes. They were as joyful at the end of school as we always were. That was my time to travel, to explore more of Africa. Even now, so many decades later, it still amazes me to say explore more of Africa. I think my eleven year old self, the age I was when I vowed to travel, would be thrilled and pleased almost beyond measure.

I joined the drill team when I was ten or eleven. We learned our maneuver all winter in the armory upstairs, usually on a Tuesday evening. I got teased because I used to do a bit of homework when there was a break. I’d bring index cards filled with vocabulary or history I needed to learn. Summer was drill competition time. Our first contest was usually in mid June under the lights in Everett. I remember being a bit nervous when moving from the inspection line to the ready line. One year, the person standing beside me panicked. She said she couldn’t remember a single step because we were at the wrong end of the field. She meant in practice we started at the opposite end of the field. I told her everything looks different under the lights. She believed me. She had no trouble remembering.

My dance card is empty until Tuesday.

The rain is coming. The wind is cooler and getting stronger. The clouds are dark. It is a storm coming from the south. The rug is on the floor to protect my newly washed and polished kitchen floor, but I may have to shut the door to keep the rain out. This is a lazy time of day for the dogs who are lying on each side of me on the couch and are napping. I always envy my dogs.

My dog Duke was never allowed on furniture. He knew the rule, but he also knew out to get around the rule. He’d stretch his body across the beds but keep his back paws on the floor. He slept on the couch at night, but he jumped off if he heard someone coming down the stairs in the morning. Duke never got caught.

When I was a kid, the closer we got to the end of school, the more effort it took to pay attention. We had end of the year exams, but nothing really depended on them. We had a longing for summer.

I used to ride my bike to school more as the year ended. I left my bike in the bike rack. It was wooden, painted green and under the trees on one side of the schoolyard. It had a slot for each bike. No one locked their bikes. They weren’t fancy bikes back then. They had no gears. They had pedals with back brakes. I remember biking through sand and jamming on my brakes to slide on purpose. We used to attach playing cards, sometimes bent in half, to the spokes with spring clothespins. The cards made a flapping sound, a rhythmic sound as the wheels spun. I lived on a hill, and it took me a while before I could pedal the whole way. I used to get so tired I would stand up hoping to get more distance. I remember how the pedals got heavier and heavier, but I also remember the joy of triumph when I finally made it all the way.

Today is a delight. It is 70° and filled with sunshine. The blue sky is striking. A breeze stirs the leaves on the lower branches. It is the best of early summer weather.

When I was a kid, I got car sick. I used to stick my head out the window hoping I’d feel better. Sometimes, though, I’d get sick out the window. I have two big car sick memories. I was quite young, and we were on our way to visit my grandparents in East Boston. I remember I was wearing a dress. We were close when I threw up all over me and the floor. My father turned right around, and we went home. He cleaned the car. My mother cleaned me. The other memory is a bit comical. I got sick out the window. A bit of it was caught by the breeze. My father said he felt drops. “It must be starting to rain,” he said. I said nothing.

I remember family road trips and Sunday rides. We’d ride north on Route 1. There was so much to see. The sides of the road were filled with old motels and some restaurants. I remember the giant cactus sign outside the Hilltop Steak House. The Prince’s Restaurant had a leaning tower. A giant orange dinosaur looked over the highway from a miniature golf course. Augustine’s had wonderful food and was a favorite restaurant of ours. Some old lady used to play an organ. The Ship Restaurant was another quirky place to eat. It was huge and was a long way from the water. One small motel was right on the road. I remember it was red, and a big sign was in front, far taller than the motel building which had only a few, maybe 6 or 8 rooms. I remember tacky looking bars with signs mentioning dancing girls. There were always cars out front despite the time of day. I always wished we’d stop at Russo’s Candy House or Putnam Pantry for ice cream. We seldom stopped.

One of my strongest memories from a family ride was seeing some deer grazing under trees on a small hillside near the road. I hadn’t ever seen deer in the wild before that. I can still close my eyes and see those deer.

It rained early this morning. Right now it is sunny and warm at 74°, but clouds are soon expected. It is humid, no surprise there. This is, after all, summer on Cape Cod. Tonight will be in the low 60’s.

When I was a kid, we stayed outside in the summer rain. During torrential storms we kicked and splashed water in the gutters and jumped into puddles. We got soaked. We loved every minute of it. We sun dried. I loved riding my bike just after a storm. I’d ride through puddles and lift my feet off my pedals into the air. Waves rose on each side of my bike. Sometimes the puddles were so deep I’d skim on the water and hold on to the handlebars to keep my bike upright.

I love early summer mornings though of late I have been seeing them at their beginnings, at first light. The first bird songs come with the glimmer of light, a single bird then the chorus. Some mornings have fog, ground fog. Those are my favorites.

The post office in my town was one of my favorite places. It is a brick building. Inside was grand. It had marble walls and table tops. The clerks were behind windows which looked like old time bank teller windows. Voices seem to echo. Inside always felt cool in the summer.

My town had three funeral homes when I was a kid. One was inside what had been a large white house. It was on Main Street. That was where my grandfather was waked. The funeral home was on the corner of the street where my grandfather had lived which, when I was older, I recognized as irony. He was the first person I knew who had died. The other two funeral homes were right beside each other just off Main Street. The Catholics were waked in one, the Protestants in the other. I always thought that a bit odd.

The First National was right up the street from my grandparents’ house. My grandmother even dressed up to go grocery shopping. She always wore a hat. She pulled a wire basket behind her to hold her groceries. She only bought just what she needed. She used to buy Circus Peanuts, those orange hard marshmallow candies shaped like peanuts which strangely enough tasted a bit like banana. She always gave them to my father when he visited. She also bought spearmint leaves and glass bottles of root beer. She kept the root beer on the floor of the closet in her kitchen.

I have a couple of house chores to finish, and I also still need to get a few groceries. Sounds like an exciting day!

The morning is hot at 79°, but the temperature won’t get much higher. It will be a sunny day. Right now we have a lovely breeze. Rain is predicted for tonight but in the wee hours. I knew it would rain. I washed my kitchen floor yesterday, a task which took a few hours given how much it needed to be cleaned and how often I took cold drink breaks. When I was finished, harkening back to Ghana, I took a cold shower to wash away the heat and the grime. It was quick.

The trees in my backyard are so full just the sunlight shines through the leaves. I only see glimpses of the sun and the blue sky through the scanty branches at the tops of the highest trees. My den is cool and shaded this time of day so the dogs nap on the couch. They take up two cushions.

When I was a kid, Sunday was my least favorite day. I had to go to mass, not out of any religious conviction, but rather because original sin and the black milk bottle in the Baltimore Catechism had me running scared of eternal damnation. I did try to make the services as painless as possible. I brought a book and read it. With my head down, I gave the appearance of fervently reading my missal. Back then, this time of year, the church was always filled especially during the early masses so worshipers could get on with their summer fun. If I was in the upstairs church, I often stood in the back with the overflow of church goers or sat outside on the steps. Downstairs, I also stood in the back, but I got to read all the pamphlets on the rack against the back wall. I used to vault up the stairs to the door when mass was over and my obligation was complete.

Sunday dinner was casual all summer. The oven kept the kitchen too hot. Even fans barely moved the air. I loved my mother’s peppers and eggs. She made great potato salad. In August we ate sugar corn. I can remember watching my father shuck the ears. We ate hot dogs and cheeseburgers. The cheese was always yellow American cheese. Back then I put ketchup on my burgers.

Today I have a few more chores, upstairs, and I need some groceries. My week has the usual uke events.