When I went to get the papers, I gasped a bit for breath not expecting it to be so cold. Frost had iced the lawn and covered the car windows. I hurried back inside, had my first cup of coffee and settled in for a while to read a bit of the paper, but I couldn’t linger as I had to leave earlier than usual to go out for breakfast, even before my second cup of coffee, so I could scrape the car windows. I rummaged through the trunk and found the windshield scraper then went from window to window. I even scraped the window for Gracie. I hated every minute of scraping those windows not because of the effort but because of the significance. That frost is winter’s first assault.
On the way home I noticed lawns being raked mostly by men wearing warm jackets. A few joggers were out running, and they were wearing mittens. One woman, walking her dog, didn’t seem at all phased by the weather. She had on a long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. I was impressed by her hardiness.
The day is pretty with bright sun and a steel-blue sky, but the strong breeze blowing the leaves left on the trees has me thinking the day looks far better from inside rather than outside. When Gracie goes out and stays a while, her ears are really cold when she comes back inside.
When I was young, we never did much on a Sunday. After church we’d hang around the house and maybe watch a TV movie while my mother prepared then cooked dinner, and sometimes we’d sit or lie on the living room rug to play a few games while my father read the paper. He always sat in the same chair by the picture window, and I can still see him holding the paper in front of him. My father read his paper not as a whole but section by section. He’d finish one section then add it to the pile he’d started on the floor beside the chair then he’d pick up the next section and start reading. He always left the sports pages until last.
I read the Sunday papers much like my father did, section by section, and I put each finished section in the recycle bag I keep by the table here in the den. The one difference is in the last section to be read. I always save the travel pages.
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