Today is a fall day, partly cloudy and in the mid 50’s, sweater weather for sure. The once bright red leaves on the branch outside my window have started to turn brown, and their edges are folded inward. Some have already fallen. I can see the coming winter as I watch the changes in the leaves.

When I was a kid, I layered for walks to school on chilly mornings like today’s. Winter coats were too heavy and just a jacket wasn’t enough. I’d wear my thickest sweater with my jacket. At school, I’d take the sweater off and leave it in the cloak room. It was too hot for inside.

In school, our day was regimented by bells, hand held bells. Someone would stand by the railing on the highest floor and ring the bell into the air over the railing so all the floors could hear. Each classroom had clocks, the usual sort of school clocks, but the bells ruled the day. The only time I clock watched was to keep an eye on how close we were getting to the end of the school day.

We had recess after lunch unless it rained. During recess, the boys stayed on one side of the school yard, the girls on the other. When we were younger, the boys ran around chasing each other and screaming. The girls jump roped or played hopscotch. When we were older, the boys played basketball, and the girls stood in groups talking, a lot of times about the boys.

When I was growing up, most of the vegetables came from cans. Summer corn and home grown tomatoes were the few exceptions. We didn’t eat anything exotic. We had potatoes just about every night. We had peas, green and yellow wax beans and French green beans, the only beans I’d eat, kernel and cream corn and hidden carrots mashed with the potatoes. I never minded eating veggies except for baked beans. I always thought they were gross looking, mushy and brown.

We had apples, oranges, bananas, tangerines at Thanksgiving and strawberry shortcake in the summer. We also liked pears, but my mother didn’t buy them often. We did eat some off the tree behind a neighbor’s fence. They were always hard.

It wasn’t until Ghana that I tried strange fruits and vegetables. I recognized tomatoes and onions but that was about all. I ate okra, plantain, garden eggs, mango, pawpaw, tuber yam, cassava, fresh coconut and fresh pineapple. My taste buds came alive. I became a bit audacious. I tried everything. I liked just about all of it. I didn’t like cassava.

The morning is lovely, a bit chilly though, only 48°. We have sun, but partly cloudy is the forecast. I checked the bird feeders this morning through the window and noticed the traffic is heavy. I filled all the feeders yesterday so the word is out.

The dogs are festive. They are each wearing their Halloween collars. Nala’s has witches, mummies, Mrs. Frankenstein, bats, webs and skeletons, a perfect choice for her. Henry’s has cats, smiling pumpkins and ghosts and witches. His ghosts look like Casper. His collar creatures are much friendlier than Nala’s.

When I was a kid, choosing a Halloween costume was never easy. The planning took weeks. I’d pick one, discard it, pick another, discard it and then keep looking. Some kids bought costumes from Woolworth’s. They were usually one piece worn over clothes and tied in the back on the top. The fronts were characters like skeletons, witches, cowboys, clowns or the devil. The masks were plastic with such small eye holes it made them difficult to look through, and they were hot. We always wore homemade costumes. My mother was a costume designer. Many kids did. A ghost was the easiest, a sheet and two eye holes. Some girls wore old dresses and hats their mothers used to wear. Cowboys were big as were hoboes who always carried a stick with a tied neckerchief at the end. They had dirty faces rubbed on from a burnt cork. My sister, who took dance lessons, wore her tutu one year. The only bought thing was a new mask every year. It looked like the sort the Lone Ranger wore except it was colorful.

My mother had a set of Pyrex bowls and a set of tulip bowls. The sizes nested. We’d use one of the bowls to hold our candy. I’d carry the bowl with me, but at night I’d keep the bowl under my bed for quick access. Years ago, I was shopping at an antique mall sort of shop. I watched a woman put out a set of those tulip bowls for sale. I bought them right away. Those bowls carry with them strong memories.

The rain has come and gone for now. The thunder was way off but just enough of a sound for Nala to raise her head and wonder. Today will be fall warm at 65°.

I’m watching a great bad movie, King of the Zombies from 1941. It takes place on an island, has voodoo, zombies and a Dracula lookalike. It also has a sort of happy ending.

When I was a kid, my classroom on rainy days had almost a comforting feel. The lights were pendant lights hanging from the ceiling. They left shadows. The rain quieted us. It pelted the windows, long windows from the ceiling. I used to watch the rain trickle down the panes of glass. When the rain was the heaviest and the loudest, we read our literature books and answered the questions at end of each story. They were easy.

When I was young, I half believed in ghosts. I was open to possibilities. I never lingered by any graveyards just in case. Night noises had me on alert especially when the wind howled. My father’s stories of the hook man were real to me. I remember hearing a noise outside one night. I yelled out the door, “Who’s there?” It was bravado. An answer would have had me running for my life. When I was older, the graveyard near my house was a shortcut of sorts. I never worried about spirits, but I stayed on alert, sort of hedging my bests.

Henry is a barker. Even the smallest outside sound gets him started. He sometimes drives me crazy. I’ll open the front door and tell him, “Look! Nothing is there.” He’ll check up and down the street then back into the house. He does have an intruder bark which I now recognize. He saves that for Amazon or UPS trucks or someone walking a dog by my house. Once in a while, his bark is a bit ominous. Late at night, he’ll sometimes jump off the bed, stand in the hall and bark his scary, loud bark. I just stay in bed. I figure an intruder would not want to tangle with the source of that bark.

My dance card is uke heavy this week. I have practice Tuesday, my lesson on Wednesday and concerts on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

I love mornings in fall. Today is just perfect. The air is sweet. We have a breeze. The sun glints through trees and highlights the fluttering leaves. It is already in the 60’s.

As for the days of the week, Saturday is the busiest day. It is errand day. People are out and about early. I even went to Dunkin this morning and waited in a long line for my coffee and my treat, a pumpkin donut, in keeping with the season of course.

When I was a kid, my biggest dilemma was what should I buy with my pennies, valuable currency back then. I’d stand in front of the penny candy display and lean on the glass. Should I go for taste or longevity? Green Mint Julep and Banana Split squares had both as did Mary Janes and Bit O’ Honey. Tootsie Rolls were chewy. Fire Balls were a challenge. You had to keep them in your mouth despite the heat. Eating Bull’s Eyes always had a technique. Eat the caramel first and the white cream last. Eating Candy Buttons always included eating a bit of paper. Wax Bottles were a great buy. You bit off the top, sucked out the syrup then chewed the wax. The adult me finds that a bit gross. A Pixie Stix was a straw filled with colored powder which was mostly sugar. You bit off the top and poured the power into your mouth. I remember how dry it was and how it stuck to my teeth. The only favorites I had were the two for a penny candies.

The dogs are upstairs napping on my bed. Jack too is sleeping. The house is quiet.

<!– wp:paragraph As for the days of the week, Saturday is the busiest day. It is errand day. People are out and about early. I even went to Dunkin and waited in a long line for my coffee and my treat, a pumpkin donut, in keeping with the season of course. Sunday is the most boring of the week. When I was a kid, Sunday was quiet, a stay around the house day. It is still that way for me. Mostly I just read the paper and loll. I stay home. Monday has always been the dismal day of the week. I’d have to get up for school, never easy after two days of sleeping in. I begrudged every minute of the morning. When I worked, I was up at 5:15. I hated 5:15, especially Mondays at 5:15. The rest of the days of the week were just sort of jumbled together. Friday was the only stand out.

Oh! What a beautiful morning, a perfect fall morning. The sun is bright. The sky is blue and cloudless. It is in the low 50’s, a chill leftover from last night, but it will get warmer, even shirt sleeve warm.

When I was a kid, I often ate oatmeal on cold mornings. My mother was insulating us for the walk to school. She always added sugar and milk to the oatmeal. Sugar makes everything tasty, even lumpy oatmeal. I can’t remember the last time I had oatmeal. I know it is now instant and has no lumps. Too bad, I always thought lumps gave oatmeal personality.

When I was in Ghana, I loved the mornings. Even in the dry, hottest time of the year, the early mornings were comfortable. I had two eggs and two pieces of toast every morning for breakfast. The eggs were fried in groundnut, peanut, oil and were delicious. My stove seldom had gas so meals were cooked over a small, round charcoal burner. The bread leaned against the hot part of the stove for toasting. In Accra, I had bought a giant stein like mug for coffee. I had a cup before breakfast and one during breakfast. I’d have one more cup at the end of my first couple of classes. I used to sit on my small front porch to drink the first cup. I’d greet the kids cutting across school grounds to the elementary school just outside my school’s gates. They’d stop, salute and say, “Good morning, sir. How are you?” They were learning English and had started with memorizing greetings. I lived on the school compound so after breakfast I’d walk from my house to the classroom block. That walk never felt commonplace.

Yesterday I brought my flamingo inside the house off the deck. It is a fall ritual. The flamingo has several outfits. She is now decked in a black robe with a purple lining and a witch’s cap with pumpkins on it and hanging bright lime hair now draped around her head and beak. She is ready for Halloween.

Last night was cold, and the cold lingers in the house. It will be chilly all day, staying in the 50’s. The sun is shining. It is windy. I can see the top most branches still filled with leaves swaying.

I filled the bird feeders yesterday, and a riot of birds are flying in and out. They are nuthatches and chickadees. When she visited, my mother used to love to watch my birds. She also had feeders in her backyard, but her birds were pigeons and crows. We used to joke they were country pigeons. Spawns would hang from her feeders while they dined. We watched other spawns tightrope cross the clothes line to a feeder. Regardless, my mother faithfully filled her feeders.

When I was a kid, I used to love to visit Boston Common. We’d go in the summer and also in the winter near Christmas. In the summer we’d ride the swan boats. My father would buy us peanuts, and we’d feed the spawns. They came right to us and took the peanuts out of our hands. We were swamped with spawns. We were delighted.

I am reminded of one trip to London. I was traveling with my mother and father. My father and I went walking while my mother stayed back at the hotel. We stopped in Trafalgar Square. We bought some seeds. The pigeons attacked. My father laughed the whole time. He didn’t know I even put seeds on his head. The pigeons went after those seeds. He still laughed. I have a wonderful picture of him with the pigeons on his head and hand and other pigeons flying around him. We decided we’d bring my mother to the square. When we did, we gave her a cup of seeds. The pigeons attacked. She screamed and kept screaming. She threw her seeds to the ground. She gave us hell.

I voted. I never miss voting. My first time voting was 1968 for the Nixon-Humphrey race. My candidate lost. I was disappointed. I was in the eighth grade when I first got interested in politics. Kennedy was my senator so he was also my candidate for president. I wore Kennedy pins, still have them. I watched the debates. On election night, I watched the results trickle in. When I went to bed, there was still no winner announced. It was too close to call. The next morning Kennedy was declared the winner. Nixon graciously conceded.

This is a four uke week, a slow week. I have already had practice and a lesson. The first concert is today, another tomorrow. Nothing else is on my dance card.

Today will be in the low 60’s and partly cloudy. The sun was shining when I woke up then the clouds took a turn. Now, the sun and the blue sky are back. I always wonder why the weather is described as partly cloudy. Partly sunny is lovely. Everything pops in the light. The leaves seem to glean. It is a bit windy, and more leaves are falling. The oak leaves have all turned red.

When I was a kid, I loved walking to school on fall mornings. The clear air held a chill from the nighttime. The sunlight had a sharpness and slanted a different way. My footsteps on the sidewalk seemed to echo. We talked in whispers.

I never saw a nun eat lunch. The nuns went back to the convent across the street to eat. The only nun I ever saw eat was Sister Hildegard. During lunch, you could buy a candy bar. The bars were delivered in a lunch box just before the lunch bell. Sister Hildegard would go through the box and take a few bars and hide them in her drawer. She never fooled any of us. During the day, she’d put her hand to her mouth. After that she’d chew. We knew she was eating candy. One time I went to her desk with a worksheet to ask a question. She spit nuts on the paper then sent me right back to my desk.

My Halloween candy arrived yesterday. I put it in the closet so I don’t see it. I have full size Hershey Chocolate bars and an assorted box with Snickers, Milky Ways and Three Musketeers. I hope I give that last box all away, and I hope I don’t give any of it away.

I love the classic creature movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man and The Mummy. I always feel sad for the cursed Wolfman. His transformation is not his fault. Poor Larry Talbot was bitten by a werewolf. Dracula is my favorite. You never see him bite his victims. He waves his cape to hide it. Renfield is the saddest character. I love the way the Mummy walks. I love Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. I love the Invisible Man and especially the old woman screaming and running up the stairs. I love that all of these movies are black and white. That makes them just a bit scarier.

The morning is wet and chilly. If Nala hadn’t whacked me a couple of times, I’d still be in my warm bed. I turned on the heat so the house will be comfortable enough for my shower a bit later. I have to go out.

Rainy days in fall are sort of ugly. The leaves on the ground get soaked and stick together in a brown mess. The bark on the trees looks almost black. The sky is ominous. Everything is dark.

When I was a kid, my favorite subjects were English followed by history and geography. I wasn’t a fan of arithmetic. I remember memorizing the times tables, the only way to learn them. One, five and ten were easy, eight and nine were not as easy. I also remember learning coins. We got work papers with pictures of coins and problems to solve like adding together a dime, a dime and a nickel. I’d practice at home with real coins.

I converse with my dogs. Nala usually answers. Henry listens. He always looks right at me when I chat with him. They have favorite words like treat, dinner and out. They both come when I call, Henry right away and Nala after a few calls. When she doesn’t come, I know she’s caught a critter. I don’t check anymore. I’ve learned she’ll come in when she gets bored or, in the case of possums, when they dupe her and pretend to be dead. She doesn’t kill the critters. She carries them around the yard then just leaves them.

After school, I’d go out on the warmer afternoons to play. I was never out long. Darkness came early. Once in the house, I’d watch TV until supper. My mother was always in the kitchen cooking. Supper was meat, potatoes and some sort of vegetable, a canned vegetable. We ate a lot of ground beef, but my mother was a whiz with ground beef. She served it in so many different ways. Her meatloaf was my favorite, especially the one frosted with mashed potatoes.

This is a four event ukulele week.

The weather is just about the same every day, but I’m not complaining. We do have a bit of a breeze today. The oak leaves are turning brown and will soon cover the deck and hide the acorns. The spawns haven’t been at the bird feeders. They are content with the acorns, so many acorns.

Today is a house day. I need to put in the other storm door, vacuum the tumbleweeds, aka clumps of Henry fur, water plants and change the bed. I’m thinking I’ll need a nap. Just the list makes me tired.

When I was a kid, Sunday was definitely a day of rest. After church and dinner, we sometimes went to East Boston but more often we stayed home. We’d watch a movie except during football season when my father watched a game. He was a Giants fan back then. When I was young, I’d often color at the kitchen table. A cigar box held all the crayons. They were of different lengths, and the wrap was usually gone so we didn’t know the nuances of the colors. We had coloring books, some nearly filled but all with empty pages. I used blunt colors when I was younger, but as I got older, I shaded the colors. Sometimes my mother would color with me. I always thought she was an artist with crayons.

On Sundays, a roast of some sort was always baking, and its aroma filled the house. Roast beef was my favorite, but stuffed chicken was a close second. We had mashed potatoes every Sunday. Even now, when I cook a roast of some sort, I think I need mashed potatoes to make the meal complete. Gravy and baby peas, at least for me, were the rest of the dinner. On Sunday nights we had hot, open-faced sandwiches with slices of the roast on bread covered with gravy. The bread was white and soft, probably Wonder Bread.

My groceries were delivered yesterday. I treated myself to a big container of animal crackers and a package of Oreos. I still check which animal I am about to devour. I mostly eat the Oreos whole. I even sometimes dunk them into my coffee. Oreos taste great no matter how they are eaten.

I love this morning. It is sunny, though the sun is only temporary, and it is warmish, already in the mid 60’s. The air is still. The leaves outside my window have turned bright red, and the color is popping in the sun. The house is quiet. It is nap time for the dogs. After all, they have been awake for a couple of hours and must be exhausted.

When I was a kid, my favorite day of the week was Saturday. My father did his errands, and sometimes I went with him. When I did, I thought those were special Saturdays. Uptown was always bustling on Saturdays. Hanks had fresh bread. The barbershop, a small one with only a couple of chairs, had men waiting. My father always got a trim. He’d pick up his clean shirts and leave his dirty shirts at the Chinese laundry. The clean shirts were wrapped in brown paper and tied with white twine. They were on a shelf in a sort of bookcase behind the counter. The laundry was hot and humid from the big presser in the front by the side window. Sometimes our timing was perfect, and I got to watch the man press shirts. The presser hissed with steam.

Three drug stores were right in the square and another was not far from the square. Middlesex Drug was the biggest. Pullo’s was the smallest. Sometimes my father stopped to visit with Pullo who was also the pharmacist and wore a white coat. He’d come from behind the counter to visit my dad. I’d have a Coke while I was waiting.

When I go back to my hometown, I ride through the square. From my memory drawers, I can see my square when I was a kid. I see the police box in the middle of the street, Woolworth’s and Grants, all those drug stores, Kennedy’s with its cheese, pickles and barrels out front, the spa and the Chinese laundry. I knew how special the square, uptown, was even way back then.