Keep the Coffee Comimg

We still have clouds. It is still in the low 60’s. It is a damp, dark morning. The weather forecast says it will be a partly cloudy day, but I think partly is a misnomer. The sky is socked in leaving no room for the sun.

Yesterday, I was so involved with bemoaning the day I missed welcoming the first day of fall, my favorite season. Today I’ll remedy that.

I noticed that some leaves on the backyard trees are turning color, a perfect welcome for fall. Some leaves are yellow. Other leaves are red. The deck is covered in yellow leaves blown by the heavy winds. The blanket of leaves in the backyard is getting taller. I can hear Nala doing her zoomies. The leaves crunch under her paws as she runs. That sound, that crunching sound of the leaves, is bright in my memory drawers and part of the melody of fall. I remember walking to school on sidewalks covered in the red leaves of the maple trees. The leaves crunched under my feet the whole walk to school.

I remember the first cold mornings of fall. The light had a shimmer to it. Everything looked brighter in the clear air. I bundled by wearing a sweater under my jacket. The day would warm as the sun rose higher.

I always think of soup this time of year. The most perfect lunch was tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. My mother would put the soup into the pan and fill the can with milk, not water, then add it to the pan. That made for the thickest, creamiest tomato soup. The cheese was always yellow American cheese. In the frying pan, the bread got deep brown and the cheese melted, even oozing a bit from the sandwich. I always dipped the sandwich into the soup. It was the perfect bite.

I have a couple of errands. I have to open a new checking account and get another ATM card so I can get some money. The dollar I have won’t go far. I can’t even buy a Snickers. I also need to stop at Agway for dry dog food, bird seed and a mum for my front steps. Today is the only open day for errands as I have a uke event every day for the rest of the week.

We’re coming into cocoa weather.

The rain has gone and left us with a damp, cloudy, chilly morning in the 60’s, but the sun might peek through later. The bird feeders need filling and the deck needs clearing. I’ll throw the fallen deck branches into the growing pile I made when I cleared the yard. The deck is covered in acorns. I was thinking maybe I’ll put a few in soil to grow my own oak trees. One can never have enough oak trees. I found a connection between eggs and acorns. If you put water into a bucket until it is about half full, you then put the eggs or the acorns into the water. Discard the ones which float.

My dance card is uke loaded this week. I have practice, a lesson and four concerts, including one on Saturday. I don’t know where I can fit in an afternoon nap.

I’ve always thought of Sunday as a wasted day. When I was a kid, every Sunday morning, I begrudgingly dressed in my church clothes, a skirt and a blouse, and usually walked to mass, the same walk I always took to school. The upstairs of the church is sort of grand. It has a vaulted ceiling, old wooden pews, and when I was a kid, a huge altar by the back wall. I remember the altar boys would go behind the altar and bring out stuff like cruets needed for mass. I wondered if there was a room or just shelves behind it. I never checked. A small altar is on each side of the big altar. I remember one early, dark Christmas morning when the mass was at a side altar. Five or six old ladies and my brother and I were the only people at that mass. In the annals of my mass going, it was my favorite mass, the perfect mass, short with no sermon and no collection. There wasn’t even an altar boy.

At every wedding and funeral in my church, a man called Chewy was in attendance. He probably didn’t know who died or who was getting married, but no one minded him being there. Everyone knew Chewy. My father always stopped to shake his hand and say hi. Chewy was intellectually disabled, what was referred to as retarded back then, but it wasn’t cruelly used to describe Chewy. It was just the language of the times. I remember Chewy usually wore a grey jacket and khaki pants. He waved at the people in the cars passing by the church. I didn’t know anything about Chewy, even his real name. I don’t know how long he was the official greeter.

The rain started yesterday, and it is still raining. It is a heavy rain. I can hear it plinking on the dogs’ outside metal bowl and pounding on the roof and windows. The dogs went out then immediately turned around to come back inside. They are now napping away their trauma. The house is chilly, sweatshirt and socks chilly. It is a perfect day to nestle under a blanket, drink coffee and read.

When I was a kid, today would have been the greatest disappointment. I’d have been stuck with no adventures, with being house bound. My bike would have stayed in the cellar. I’d wind up reading in my room, my refuge, and, in the afternoon, watching Creature Double Feature, the only redeeming piece of the day. Saturday supper was universal, the same all over, hot dogs, beans and brown bread. The hot dogs, covered in mustard and piccalilli, were in a toasted roll. I never ate the beans. I did eat the brown bread slathered in butter. It was the only bread I ever ate which came from a can. I bought a can of it recently. I didn’t like it. I was a little bit sad.

When I was growing up, my town had some factories. I remember the box factory by the railroad tracks. Once in a while, I’d see mostly men sitting outside on the steps smoking. Across from Farm Hill was a chemical factory which I remember and later a pharmaceutical factory, E.L. Patch. I only know about the Patch factory as I have an old postcard of the building. I don’t remember it. The building was beside a different part of the tracks than the box factory. When the trains still ran, I remember seeing train cars parked beside the building. Stoneham was a shoe town. The town seal even has a high top shoe on it. A shoe factory was right below uptown and was still operating when I was a kid, but not anymore. Now it houses condominiums.

I seldom go back to my town, but when I do, I take a nostalgia ride. I ride through the streets which were my walk home from school. I pass the house in the project where we lived before we moved to the cape. I drive by my grammar school, the park where I used to ice skate, the zoo, what once was the dairy farm and through all the other familiar streets which were so important in my life. Sights and sounds jump out of my memory drawers. Time stops, and it is almost as if I were there, and I’m young again.

Last night the rain started. It is now a mighty storm with heavy winds. I saw branches on my deck and a spawn at the feeders. I’ll go out later to clear the deck and throw acorns at the spawn. I do wish I had a sling shot.

This is a busy week. Besides practice and a lesson, I have four uke concerts so I am going to adopt my sloth like persona until Tuesday, practice day.

Yesterday I had my four shots, two in each arm. The Covid hurt going down into my arm but was the only one which did. This morning my arm, the one subjected to RSV and the shingles shot, is sore. I did wake up with a horrifically painful back, the old question mark look, but I blame the dogs.

I have told this story before, but I was reminded of it yesterday. We, the Peace Corps trainees heading to Ghana, got a yellow fever shot before we left the US. In Ghana, the second day was shot day. We got shots protecting us from everything except Black Death. The table was long and L shaped. We got in line and moved from shot to shot. We chatted while waiting, but most of us were a bit nervous, and the laughs were forced. We didn’t know what we were getting so we asked at each stop. We got typhoid, parathyroid, diphtheria and the most painful shot of all, rabies. The guy in front of me barely flinched with each shot. At one stop his knees buckled. That was the rabies stop. I said I didn’t want it. I got it. My knees buckled from the pain. The guy behind said he didn’t want. He got it. We moved on to polio vaccine and gamma globulin against hepatitis, a shot we got every six months. That last one was given in a private room as it was a butt shot. We started taking Aralen, pills we had to take every week, to protect us from malaria. The next day many of us were sick. Red lines were moving up and down my arm. I also had a fever. I napped a lot.

We were given a medical case with pills we might need, bandages, salves to ward off infection and other stuff I don’t remember. We got a booklet explaining everything in the case and their uses. My favorite lines in the whole booklet were what to do if we got bitten by a dog. We should cut off the dog’s heads, put it on ice and carry it to Accra. That meant I’d have the dog’s head with me on a bus for about twelve hours. I didn’t even want to contemplate what that ride would be like.

I was pretty healthy for those 2 years. I never got bitten by a dog, and I didn’t get Black Death.

The morning is rainy and cold. I’m glad for the rain. This has not been one of my better days. First was the dentist. Luckily, that went quickly, and I only whined a couple of times. My next stop was to have blood drawn. I hate lines, and there was a line. The bank was my next stop. I seemed to have misplaced my checkbook and ATM card. Lost is probably the more accurate word. I checked my car. I checked the driveway. I called the 24 hour line. I got a new ATM card. Only one stop is left, but I’m taking a coffee break after which I’ll get my Covid and flu shots. The day can only go up from there.

When I was a kid, I never saw the doctor much, only out of necessity. His office was a front room in his house. The house was enormous, an old white house beside the entrance road to my school yard. I remember he had a skeleton right by his desk. He was a big man, big as in heavy, not muscular. His white coat was too small. He wore suspenders. I remember he did not have a gentle touch. One time I split my chin so my mother and I walked to his office. He cleaned the cut by roughly rubbing a cotton square across it. I remember the pain. He said it was infected so he couldn’t sew it. I wanted to cheer. He closed it as well as he could and put a bandage over it. I was glad to leave. I skipped home.

I love New England and its four seasons. Fall is the most spectacular. The trees are a riot of colors. The mornings are crisp, the days warm. The nights are cool, perfect for sleeping. On my ride yesterday, I noticed the bogs are red with cranberries. Harvesting usually begins in October. I check when bogs will be harvested as I like to watch as the berries are gathered. It is such a tradition on Cape Cod. The apples are ripe for picking. It is time for apple cider donuts. This morning I noticed so many houses already decorated with mums and pumpkins. I also noticed some ghosts hanging from trees, gravestones in front yards and a scarecrow or two. It is time to start embracing Halloween.

Today will be mostly cloudy, but it is sunny right now. It will be warm again. The great weather continues.

Yesterday the great mystery of the sock was solved. Last week I found a single sock on my deck from a favorite pair of socks. I know socks don’t walk though my mother used to warn us that our socks were so dirty they could walk themselves to the washer. The sock I found was wet so I put it on the rail to dry. I went upstairs through my basket of socks but couldn’t find the mate of the deck sock. In a while, the sock disappeared from the rail, but I saw it in the yard. Nala was the sock thief. That much I knew. I left the mateless sock in the yard. Yesterday I picked up my laundry. In the bag, at the top of the clean laundry pile was the sock, the missing mate. Now the other sock was missing, still in the yard I figured. I went hunting and found it. The socks have been reunited.

When I was a kid, my world was small. The most exciting places were the stores uptown and, my favorite place, just down from the square, the library. Those were the days of speaking in whispers and librarians shushing us. The librarian was old. She wore the same type dresses my grandmother did. She really did have a bun. She also spoke in whispers. At the desk, I’d hand her my books. She’d take out the card from the back of the book, stamp it with the due date and then put it back into the book. She always carefully stamped the card within the lines.

Uptown had smells and aromas. The best was the aroma which filled the square when the bread was baking at Hank’s Bakery. I remember Hanks so well. Inside were glass cases filled with brownies, cakes and cupcakes. On the wall behind the counter were the breads and rolls. I remember the white boxes and the giant roll of twine. The lady behind the counter filled the box and quickly wound it with twine. Her fingers moved so fast the box was wound with string in a heartbeat.

A distinct smell came from the fish market at the end of the square. I remember the lobsters swimming. I also remember the fish on ice. Some still had heads. I remember the fly strips hanging from the ceiling. They were sticky so they were covered with dead flies who had made bad decisions.

I am disappointed by today’s grey sky. Tonight is the harvest moon. It will be full after ten, and then there will be a partial eclipse. I’ll see clouds.

The morning is pretty with a bright sun glinting off the leaves in the backyard. It is getting warmer after last night, a chilly night. For the last few weeks, our weather has been following that same pattern, days in the low 70’s and nights in the 50’s. That seems about perfect.

When I was a kid, I loved the fall most of all. It seemed to touch every sense. All the trees were covered in red or yellow leaves, and when they started to fall, it was like a shower of colors above and below. The leaves fell quietIy and sometimes fluttered and danced as they fell. I remember the sound of the rake. My father raked the leaves into piles on the side lawn. The rake made a scratching sound, a rhythmic sound as my father went back and forth across the grass. After he was finished with the yard, he’d rake the leaves to the gutter below the small grassy hill, the hill we’d ride our bikes down. He’d burn the leaves. I can still see the smoke billowing. I can see my father in his red jacket standing by the pile to tend the fire. He’d feed it with more leaves. The smoke rose straight up from the pile. It smelled sweet and a bit earthy from the dirt clinging to the leaves. It is my favorite memory of fall.

I loved walking to and from school during the fall. The morning air was clear. It had a crispness, a chill. I‘d wear my jacket. It was warm enough for the mornings but too warm in the afternoons so I’d tie it around my waist or stuff it into my school bag. The sun was different on fall afternoons. It looked faded. Its light was slanted. The sun went down early and the air chilled. You knew winter was coming.

If you’d like a bit of a weather report, just check yesterday’s Coffee. Today is the same. I do love this weather, but I’d like some rain. Everything is too dry.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. Most of the stores were closed. It was family dinner day. We hung around the house after church. My father read his paper, and we watched TV. Sometimes in the afternoon we went to visit my grandparents.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the way to East Boston where my grandparents lived. I remember places which caught my eye or piqued my curiosity. They sit in my memory drawers in no particular order. I remember the sportman’s club with the pond stocked with trout. It was just before my favorite part of the ride, Route 1. On the highway, right beside each other were a couple of seafood restaurants. Some of the menu was listed on signs by the road so drivers might be tantalized to stop. I also remember the small store which advertised bait. It was close to the church with its back to the highway. There was a sign to Wonderland, the dog track. Both sides of the highway were filled with all sorts of stores and buildings. On a corner with a strip of grass below an overpass was a bridal shop with mannequins wearing wedding dresses in the windows. The rotary was always busy. We had to wait for a break in traffic. Beyond that was a trailer park and a sort of project with brick buildings. It was at the bottom of the hill where the huge statue of Madonna Queen of the Universe looked down on the city. We’d leave the highway and ride through a couple of neighborhoods to get to my grandparents’ house. My father would drop us us then he’d hunt for a parking space. The house was always filled with cousins and aunts and uncles. My grandmother was in the kitchen as were my mother and the aunts. My grandfather hid from the turmoil. He used to give us each a dime.

My dance card is fairly empty for this week. I have the usual uke practice and lesson and only one concert. If the warm weather continues, I’ll be happy to sit on the deck to read and watch the birds. I’ll let my sloth have full rein.

I never tire of beautiful days. Today will be 75° and sunny while tonight will have a low of 58°. The morning is quiet and still. My tasks today are simple, fill the bird feeders and vacuum the Henry fur which is all over downstairs. The little balls of fur resemble tumbleweeds in their shape and in their ability to travel in the breeze when the dogs and I walk by them.

I miss phone booths. I miss the banks of them at train and bus stations. I miss them on corners. I never went by one without checking the change slot. I sometimes found a dime. They were refuges in the rain. I’d wait behind the folding door hoping the rain would stop. If I was walking and got tired, I’d sit in the booth for a while. I know cell phones are convenient and sometimes life saving, but the old phone booths had personality and real operators.

When I graduated from high school, my gift was a typewriter for college. I used it all four years. I also used bottles of white-out and those tiny typewriter sheets you put between the ribbon and the offending letter and then typed on the sheet the correct letter. I was often impatient waiting for the white-out to dry. My typewriter is in my cellar somewhere. I’d like to find it. I suspect hunting in the cellar will resemble an archeological dig.

My dogs and I have regimens. When we first get downstairs in the morning, the dogs rush out the dog door. One time they tried to go together and got stuck in the door. Henry goes to his favorite tree and lifts his leg. Nala runs into the yard. They both come back in for a biscuit and a small treat then they have their morning naps. I make my coffee. I read the newspaper and have two cups of coffee. This months the coffee is from Uganda. After that I start my musings. It is pretty much the same very day. It is never a grind. It is a routine.

The sun is breaking through the early morning clouds, and I can see the blue. It will be another lovely day in the 70’s and in the 50’s tonight. That’s just about perfect.

My favorite Sunday dinner was roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes and baby peas. I used to make a crater in the potatoes to hold the gravy. I’d also mix my peas with the potatoes. It wasn’t pretty, but it was tasty. My mother used to put slices of onion on the beef when it was roasting. I’d try to steal an onion, but the oven door was loud, and I always got caught.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of traveling the world. I’d be Nelly Bly. I had no specific destination. I wanted to see the whole world. I don’t know when my dream started. I remember making travel books filled with pictures from brochures and magazines. On each page, I’d write about my travels as if I’d really been there. They were my dream books.

Canada was my first foreign country. We stayed on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We didn’t need passports. Everyone spoke English. We ate at McDonald’s for lunch. I loved the falls, but I was disappointed that Canada didn’t seem foreign at all.

I wish I lived in the days of the Pan Am Clipper. I’d be traveling in luxury, crossing oceans and landing in foreign countries, really foreign countries. I’d travel first to Hawaii then on to Asia, exotic Asia. I’d make my way across the continent. I’d fill my travel trunk with souvenirs like a kimono from Japan. I’d write in my journal every night and not have to imagine.

I always think I have been lucky in life. My childhood dreams became real. I got to travel the world, except for Asia. I had a trip booked but bought a house instead. I always sort of joke about living in Asia. I’d still like to go there, but I want to go back to Ghana first. I’m hoping for a trip in three years, a birthday present from me to me. That is when I turn 80. Such a monumental birthday demands a monumental gift.