When I woke up, the sky was cloudy and the air humid, thickly humid, but the sun arrived not long after and blew the humidity away. The clouds went with it but only for the meantime. The day will be hot with a high of 78°, but tonight will be comfortable at 66°.

When I was a kid, I wore sleeveless blouses and shorts, not Bermuda shorts or short shorts, just regular shorts. I wore sneakers without socks. They were canvas sneakers, usually Converse white sneakers. That was my summer uniform. The only change each day was in the colors of my shirts and shorts. I never gave coordinating colors a thought. I just grabbed whatever clothes were in my bureau drawers. It was the 50’s, fashion was often iffy.

When I was in high school, my mother’s phone call was interrupted by the operator who said there was an emergency. It wasn’t, but it was Sister Melania, the principal at Arlington Catholic who wanted to talk to my mother. She asked my mother to be an officer in the newly formed Arlington Catholic Mother’s Guild. My mother became the correspondence secretary. She always felt a bit out of her element. The women dressed up for each meeting. They wore hats, mostly wide brimmed, and dresses perfect for a late 50’s, early 60’s cocktail party. My mother had few dress up clothes and only a hat or two so she borrowed from my aunt and some friends. I remember a picture of her all dressed up and sitting at the officers’ table. I don’t remember her dress, but I do remember her hat. It was wide brimmed. A ribbon was around the outside top middle, but what held my attention in that picture wasn’t the hat. It was the stole. Around her shoulders she was wearing a fox stole made from a real fox with brown, soft fur. The actual head of the fox held its tail in its mouth. It was grotesque. It was also strangely fashionable.

My sisters gave me the best gift one year. When they were cleaning out my mother’s house, they found her membership card for the guild. They had it framed and matted in a gold frame. I love it. I love the memories it brings and the thoughtfulness of my sisters.

The morning is ugly: breezy, damp and cloudy. Sporadic rain is predicted. The weather lends itself to laziness.

When I was a kid, rainy summer days never stopped me. I loved running in the rain, kicking up the water in the gutter beside the sidewalk and even riding my bike through big puddles to make waves of water shoot into the air. I’d raise my feet off the pedals as the water sprayed on each side of my bike. It was a bicycle parting of water, on the small side of the Red Sea. I got wet, but I never minded. My clothes dried quickly, my sneakers not so quickly.

When I was in Ghana, during my live-in, I used to walk to the compound where my host father’s wives and their babies and small children lived. The compound was enclosed but had an open space in the middle and small connected rooms with curtained doors all around the open space. We’d greet each other, our only conversation. I’d sit and watch meals being made, fufu being pounded and toddlers stumbling around the center concrete yard. If they got near me, they’d cry because I was white, the first white person they’d ever seen. What astonished me was that often a vulture would fly into the compound and walk around as if it owned the place. Nobody but me noticed. I loved seeing a vulture so up-close instead of in a movie circling a dead body. They were big ugly birds. I always thought of our sort of meeting as a strange encounter, one I’d never have imagined.

On a trip to Scotland, I traveled to Inverness and went to see Loch Ness. I wandered around. It was a huge loch. As I wondered, I kept my eyes on the water hoping to see Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, a crypdid. I wanted Nessie to be real.

My dance card this week has few entries, just uke. My social events are sparse, but I hope to add a few Saturday movie nights on the deck, but the nights need to be warmer. I’m hankering to entertain.

The morning is lovely. It is in the high 60’s and mostly sunny. The small breeze is just perfect. I slept in this morning. Both dogs were asleep, curled beside each other on the bed. It was after 10 before we all woke up. They knew when I woke up. Henry jumped off while Nala stretched.

I remember the house in Maine where we spent our family vacation one summer. Three memories are the strongest. My father bought lobsters one night for dinner for my mother and him. He put them on the floor, and they walked, maybe even ran, backwards. Duke, our dog, bent down to look and then kept barking. The lobsters scurried faster. My father then picked them up to save them from the dog though not from the pot.

Off the kitchen was a tiny room. A bookcase was under the window, and a couple of rocking chairs with small cloth covered pads on the seat and back were by the bookcase. I checked out the books, always glad for books. One I had never seen before. It was A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. The poems were different than any I had ever read. They were as if a child, like me, had written them. The poems told of fairies, of climbing trees, of far off places and of dreaming. I became a lover of poetry.

One rainy day, the house was noisy. I took my book and went to the car and got comfy lying down on the back seat. The rain pattered the car’s roof and dripped down the windows. I was safe and dry. I fell asleep lulled by the rain.

I have other memories of that vacation, smaller memories, like listening to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon on the radio, the sick field mouse in the yard, the small pier where the row boat was tied and the cold, cold Maine water.

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.

In my front garden are a couple of ground cover plants. They have been there since I first bought my house. My father planted them for me. One weekend he and my mother came down to visit. My dad brought his lawn mower, a hand mower, garden tools and those plants. While my mother and I shopped, my dad mowed the lawn in the front and the back. Both yards were fields no longer. He weeded the garden. I could see the flowers. The garden was lovely. I get to remember that weekend every time I go out the front gate and see my father’s plants. They touch my heart.

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 was a most successful businessman. He was hired to turn a company around and he did. He was personable and funny and remembered everyone’s names. Nobody turned him down.

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. 

This morning is close the window and put on a sweatshirt cool. It is cloudy and damp as rain is predicted. The high will only be 63°. I have no plans to leave the house. I need nothing and have nowhere I want to go. I have decided to make brownies. It has been a long while since I last baked, and I just happen to have all the ingredients. I also have a hankering for chocolate.

Today is Flag Day commemorating the adoption of the flag on June 14, 1771. The red, white and blue colors are symbolic. The red represents valor and courage, the white represents purity and hope while the blue represents justice and vigilance. The thirteen stripes represent the original thirteen colonies. The stars represent the 50 states. The flag’s current design was adopted in 1958. It was designed by 17 year old Robert Heft. The last change was the addition of the 50th star in 1959.

When I was a kid, my head was filled with all sorts of nonsense disguised as real. Much of it was from my mother. She was keeping us well and safe and believed what she told us. I didn’t swim for an hour. I had to wear a hat as the heat escaped from my head. I didn’t swallow watermelon seeds for fear of growing a full size fruit in my belly. Swallowed gum became an indigestible ball in my stomach which stayed for seven years. I still spit out my gum. You can’t be too safe! Some days are just too cold to snow. I am not blind from the TV but carrots would have cured my bad eyesight anyway. We all swallow spiders in our sleep. I still follow the 5 second rule. Some things are too good to waste.

I have no to do list, no chores. I swept yesterday. Today I rest.

Yesterday I did not post, an unusual day. I had an early concert and had to leave before eleven. I just ran out of time.

Today is the perfect weather day. It is 70° with mostly sun. The air is still. The window behind me is open, and I can feel cooler air so different from yesterday’s heat. The dogs have been out so much they even skipped their morning nap.

School was usually out for the summer by this time in June. We always got out earlier than the public schools even though we had more days off during the year, holy days and such. I remember we always called them public schools, not the East School or the South School. I don’t know why. My school was St. Pat’s.

The first days of summer were exciting, no early mornings, no uniforms, no schedule and no looking out the classroom windows longing to be free. I always did think of it as freedom.

Other than supper, summer meals were whatever. I always had cereal in the mornings, my Rice Krispies, usually in front of the TV. Lunch was a sandwich, almost always bologna with yellow mustard and sometimes hot peppers, the ones with a stem. I never cut the slices well from the roll of bologna. One side was usually thicker than the other. The soft bread, the Wonder Bread, didn’t handle the odd sliced bologna well. It got holes. I had to hold the sandwich with two hands so it wouldn’t fall completely apart. Dessert was on the run, cookies, Oreos if we had any. Chocolate chips were a close second. Supper sometimes was a bit more casual but generally was much the same as the rest of the year with meat, potatoes and a vegetable. The only fresh vegetable we ever had was corn on the cob if it was ripe. We’d slather the ears with butter and salt. If we had a barbecue, it was usually hot dogs with yellow mustard and piccalilli, French’s mustard and Howard’s piccalilli.

Yesterday, I switched over to my summer clothes, vacuumed upstairs and even made supper instead of grabbing something easy. My poor sloth is distraught. Today I have a to do list, but it is intentionally short.

The morning is cold, sweatshirt weather. It has been, as my mother would say, spitting rain. I’ve lost track of the number of ugly days in a row. The sun is a fading memory. I am becoming the little girl in Bradbury’s All Summer In a Day.

If my 77 almost 78 year old self surprised my ten year old self, I wondered what questions I’d ask the so much older me. I decided that was a neat idea so I gave it some thought and came up with a few questions.

Has my life been happy? Has it been fun? Have my dreams come true? I think those are the most important questions of all. My answers would delight the young me. Have I ever traveled? Oh, the stories I would tell about the places I’ve been, the most amazing things I’ve seen and the people I’ve met. I’d let it slip that I actually lived in Africa and rode a camel in the Sahara. The young me would be in awe and listen with the widest grin on my face. What did I grow up to do? I’d talk about the job I was lucky enough to choose, the job I loved. It was seldom work. What did I like to do? They’d be no surprise that I love to read and watch old black and white science fiction movies probably still current back then. I love to cook, and that is a surprise. I do needlework, and that’s even a bigger surprise. The young me never gave thought I’d love what are sort of, to me, old womanly activities, tasks. I’d talk about playing the ukulele. Back then I didn’t believe I had a musical bone in my body. I sang so badly off tune it even hurt my ears.

After the questions were asked and answered, I’d use a sort of Neuralyzer to wipe away the memories of my visit. I wouldn’t want to influence the young me. I’d want my life to follow its natural course.

Today will have some light rain. The morning is chilly. It will be in the low 60’s during the day and the 50’s tonight. The sun has disappeared. Usually it hides all weekend but reappears on Monday, but today, I think the sun is lost.

When I was a kid, I never gave much thought to the future beyond the day or maybe even the next day. I counted the days before Christmas, but that was special. When my aunt the nun asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I made up an answer. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do on the next Saturday let alone some ambiguous future. Give me a break. I was nine.

The first time I even thought about the future was when I vowed to travel. That was when I contracted Barrett’s disease. My classmate Marty Barrett had been to England to visit his grandmother, and I was jealous. I used to go to East Boston to see mine. I had always pored over the pictures in my geography book and dreamed about traveling, about visiting far off places. The only relatives that ever traveled did so compliments of Uncle Sam. They were in the service. That included my father who, during World War II, had been to England, Belgium and the Netherlands. Canada was my first foreign country but, in my mind, it didn’t count. It felt unforeign, a perfect new word. I’d have to wait for Ghana for my next country which was about as foreign as I ever could have imagined.

Some places I have visited filled me with wonder and awe. Standing on the equator was one of them. I was in two hemispheres at the same time, one foot in each. Machu Picchu was another. I remember looking out one window and thinking that so very long ago an Incan looked out that same window and saw what I was seeing. Flying over the Andes and seeing the shadow of the plane on the mountain tops was like a scene from an adventure movie. It would have fit perfectly into Raiders of the Lost Ark. I remember thinking how craggy the tops of the mountains were.

I live in Massachusetts which has always felt old in a good way, but then I found out what old can actually be. The first trip I took after Ghana was to Europe, England first. Being there made me feel like I was in a history book. I walked in and around Stonehenge, visited all the tourist places in London, ate all sorts of interesting food, saw plays and traveled in the countryside. Nothing disappointed me.

It has been a while since I last traveled. I just haven’t been able to afford a trip, but I am starting to scrimp and save as in two years I want back to Ghana. I will be 80. It will be a present to myself.

Yesterday it rained; of course, it rained. Yesterday was the weekend, and it always rains on the weekends. This morning was sunny when I woke up. That didn’t last long. The clouds are back.

This car is smaller than my last car, the difference in size between a Corolla and a Camry. I’m not used to it yet. Yesterday I opened the back door to unload laundry and whacked myself hard in the face with the door. A bump between my eyebrows appeared almost immediately, and above my left eyebrow swelled. Luckily it hasn’t black and blued as I’d need a cover story to explain the injury rather than the real story, the door story. I think I need a keeper.

When I was a kid, going to mass on Sunday was more of an inconvenience than an act of faith. In the upstairs of my church, I’d try for the back pew. It was a corner pew for one person. It didn’t have a kneeler. It was the best pew for an early escape.

In the summer, the early masses were so full there was an overflow. People stood in the back by the doors and even outside. I remember sitting on the stairs with my back to the doors. I chatted a bit. It was more of a lark than a rite. Downstairs was much smaller than upstairs and filled fast mostly because there was no sermon. I loved standing in the back. There were books and pamphlets. I usually read a few.

In Ghana, my school always had a Sunday service. It was in the dining hall. The tables were moved, and the chairs were in rows. The sermon giver was from one of the churches in town. They alternated. I remember when my principal asked me to give the sermon. I wanted to say no but no one said no to her. I spent hours trying to figure out what to say. I ended up using Aesop fables. I had to use fables to which my students could find a connection, and, for a couple, I changed the animals to those found in Africa. The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Tortoise and the Hare were my choices. The wolf became a lion and the hare a bush rat.

My principal never asked me again. I think she was shocked.