Keep the Coffee Comimg

It is a bright, sunny, cool morning, but the day will be hot. We’re talking Cape Cod hot. The high will be 78°. My friends in Texas would wear winter coats.

I have an empty dance card today so I’ll be staying home. My to-do list is short. I have to hunt down my other slipper. It disappeared. I also have to vacuum, no surprise there, but I have an idea which may save me. I’ll wear socks and dust the floor as I walk. This technique originated in Moscow where they made us put covers over all our shoes when we toured museums. Their floors were all shiny and dust free.

When I lived in Ghana, my mother sent me packages. Inside them were games, books and, best of all, food. I remember beef jerky, boxes of Chef Boyardee pizza mix, envelopes like beef stroganoff and soup and candy which wouldn’t melt on the trip. I rationed my treats. Six days a week I’d eat Ghanaian food. Sunday was American food day.

Toward the end of my PST, a Peace Corps acronym meaning pre-service training, we were in Korforidua when one of the staff invited me to go to Accra with her. She drove. We went to a small, classy bar near the casinos. I didn’t even know places like that existed. We sat at the bar and played liar’s dice with the bartender for drinks. We did a bit of dancing on the small dance floor. I never found those places again.

During Easter vacation in my second year I went to Accra. I met up with friends who were also staying in the hostel. One of them was leaving Ghana as his school was closed for the rest of the year because of a riot. We all decided to have a few farewell drinks with him. We went to a large old hotel. The bar had tall ceilings and plants in pots by the long windows. There were couches and chairs covered in flowery fabrics. Overhead were fans. I felt as if I had been transported back in time to a bar in a grand hotel like Raffles. I was no longer in the Ghana I knew so well. I expected well dressed British couples to come through the door for cocktail hour. It was that kind of place.

The day is perfect. The sun is brilliant. The air is dry. It is 69° and won’t get much hotter. An intermittent breeze sways the small branches and flutters the oak leaves. I should stand on the porch and sing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” as I dance about like a character in a musical.

I have a concert today on the village green in Hyannis. I think a village green harkens back to earlier days. The women in the audience should be wearing long dresses and carrying parasols while the men should wear suits and bow ties and straw boaters on their heads. We’re singing songs about America.

Last night we had a tremendous rain storm with thunder and lightening. For the first time, Henry got scared, leaned on me and shook a bit. I hugged him and spoke softly hoping to reassure him. Nala didn’t seem afraid, alert maybe but not afraid. After the thunder died away, Henry settled down and fell back asleep.

When I was a kid, summer life was easy. My sole responsibility was to have fun. During the day, I seldom stayed home. Even in the rain I was out and about. I used to explore. In my mind’s eye, I can still see that field below my house. It had a path where the tall grass had been beaten down by footsteps. On both sides of the field were trees. One side had thick trees while the other side had fewer trees and led to a street. It was on that side where we buried our turtle. He was in a cigar box, and we buried him deep. Later they would build elderly apartments there, and I always wondered if they found the box. On the other side was another path which led to the water tower. Blueberry bushes were on one side of the path. We ate them and cleared the bushes. The middle path had the thick rotted trunk of a tree with a split off branch on its side. We climbed over the branch though we could have walked around it. It was a sort of ritual. That path led to the swamp and ended at a street. I always used it as a short cut. I remember when they plowed the field under and cut down the trees to build more elderly apartments. They destroyed a piece of my childhood, but I had a memory drawer filled to the brim. I get to visit that field still.

We had rain last night. It started after one. Today is damp and dark, and more rain is predicted. I did have flower shopping on my to-do list, but I’ll stay inside and do around the house chores. Gee, maybe I’ll vacuum!

Today is quiet. I can hear the birds outside and Jack meowing inside. Both dogs are napping. Henry is upstairs on my bed while Nala is beside me on the couch. I can hear her deep breathing. She sleeps soundly. Henry is ever vigilant.

When I was a kid, summer lasted forever. Every day was mine to do whatever I wanted. I walked out the door in the morning and sometimes didn’t get home until late afternoon. Those were the days when I’d make my lunch, a sandwich and some Oreos, and take it with me. If I stayed close, I went home for lunch, a sandwich and some Oreos.

My brother and I would ride our bikes to Horn Pond in Woburn and fish. We always caught fish, and we always put them back. We’d walk to the zoo or to the pool if it was really hot. Both of them were on the other side of town from where I lived so they were long walks. Walking back from the pool was hot and tiring. I carried my bathing suit wrapped in my towel. I stooped and rested. The best spot for a rest was on the benches under the trees by the town hall.

I remember summer nights in my neighborhood. The screen doors were on the back doors of all the houses. You could hear TV’s and people talking. From the houses on the top of the hill behind my house kitchens lights shined through the windows. On my street, the picture windows in the living rooms sent arcs of light across the grass lawns. Sometimes I’d sit outside in the early evening on the back steps by myself. Night birds sang. I still cherish that memory.

Last night was so chilly I had to wear what my grandmothers would call a wrap. I shut the windows, but I had to leave the backdoor open for the dogs to come and go. Today is supposed to be warm, in the low 70’s. The sun is shining now, but a cloudy day is predicted. I’m going to do house and deck chores.

My father always carried a white handkerchief. He kept it in his back pocket. In the old days, my mother used to iron them, but I remember his handkerchiefs as always being crumpled. I gave him handkerchiefs every Christmas. When I was really young, if he saw the need, he’d pull his handkerchief out of his pocket for my nose. He always said, “Blow,” as if I needed instruction. My mother always had a Kleenex in her pockabook, as New Englanders say. When she hunted for the Kleenex, it was usually on the bottom. It was always used. I remember mostly lipstick marks.

This morning I had my usual two cups of coffee and my occasional toast. It was rye toast. I got to thinking. Why do we toast bread in the morning? Why do some sandwiches have toasted bread? Why do restaurants offer jelly and butter for toast when you eat breakfast out? Why not peanut butter? I guess I’ll just chalk that up to one of life’s mysteries.

My backyard is wild. It has trees and tall grass and some poison ivy I keep trying to kill. I think of it as the dogs’ yard. They love to romp through and around it. Nala thinks of it as her hunting ground and her trash dump. Henry sniffs around but doesn’t stay outside for long. Nala loves to lie in the sun. I have two bottle trees in my yard. The bottles are upside down on hooks so they can catch evil spirits and protect the house and yard. The best visitors to my overgrown backyard are the fireflies. They appear when it is warmer. They flit around the trees. I pick one and watch it blinking all over the yard. I’m always reminded of Tinkerbell. I keep wanting to clap.

Today is amazing. Everything about the morning is beautiful. The sunlight is dramatic. It shines in and around everything. The sky is dark blue. It is 65° with a strong breeze. I even had to shut the window behind me. The dogs were joyful. They romped with wild abandonment through the backyard. Nala circled the yard over and over. I wished I could have joined them.

I have a list for today. I need a few groceries to tide me over for the weekend. I also want to buy the rest of the plants for the deck, for the clay pots. I have a concert this afternoon, Songs Across America is our current book. It will be a busy day.

For July 4th my father sometimes bought us punks. We’d twirl them around as if they were fireworks. We’d blow on the ends to brighten the embers, and we used them to light sparklers. I loved the sparklers. They spurted beautiful white sparks. They were fireworks in my hand.

One year my mother left up her Christmas tree. It was in a corner in her living room, and she lit it every night and decorated it for every holiday. For July 4th it had flags and streamers and red, white and blue garlands. It was festively patriotic.

When I was a kid, we went to the July 4th parade in Wakefield, the next town over. It was a wonderful parade with floats and bands and drum and bugle corps and drill teams. We watched the parade from on the porch of my father’s friend’s house. It was a huge event. I remember the food. The kitchen counters and kitchen table groaned under the weight of all the food, and barbecues in the backyard were always cooking hot dogs and burgers. When I was older, I marched in that parade. I was in St. Pat’s drill team. I both dreaded and looked forward to passing that house still filled with people on the porch, including my parents. They cheered when we walked by, and they called my name, prompted by my father. I sneaked a wave.

I have a concert this July 4th. I also have a few punks and some sparklers. I’ll decorate the front fence with flags and banners. I’ll cook a couple of hot dogs for myself. I’ll have a banner 4th.

The sound of rain woke me up. I listened for a short while then went back to sleep. The rain has since stopped, but the morning is damp, chilly. Everything is soaked.

Yesterday I finished planting the flowers I had bought. The deck now has 4 clay pots, 2 decorative pots and 8 over the rail flower boxes filled with herbs and flowers. I still need more flowers for the big clay pots I put on the deck trail. That’s for tomorrow. I cleaned out the metal trash can where I kept the seeds for the feeders. I haven’t hung the feeders since last year because the small branches where they had hung are gone, broken off, so I‘ll have to be creative. I do have a couple of ideas.

When I was a kid, we sometimes went to Boston for the day. We’d spend time on the Boston Common. I remember riding the Swan Boats. The boats are propelled by pedals, foot power, so the ride is quiet. I could hear birds. I watched swans gracefully swimming in the lagoon. I remember sitting on one of the benches near flower beds and having squirrels, aka the spawns of Satan, all round me begging for the peanuts my father had bought. They’d stand on their hind legs, paws out. I thought it was amazing they were so close. I was young. The Swan Boats haven’t changed in close to 150 years, neither have the squirrels.

The Peace Corps had Land Rovers, the sort that used to cross the Sahara in caravans of vehicles instead of camels. To me they meant adventures in out of the way places. I remember my first ride in a Range Rover. It was at the end of our mid-year conference. We had stayed at a hotel with cabins right on the ocean and down the coast from Accra. When one of the Peace Corps staff was going back to Accra, he offered to drive a few of us with him. I leaped at the chance. I was in a Land Rover in Africa. I could’ve been on a page of National Geographic.

The morning is a delight. It is bright and sunny and 76°. The breeze is from the north. The dogs are having their mornings naps. The house is quiet.

When I was a kid, I had no set bedtime in the summer. I watched TV and went to bed when I was tired, but before turning out the light, I’d read. I always had books. I usually bought a book a week with my 50 cent allowance and then filled in the rest of the week with library books. I always returned them early. I remember riding my bike to the library, and I remember the bouncing books in my wire bike basket.

I am a sort of transformer with a hand vacuum in place of my right hand. As I walk, the vacuum, held to floor level, sucks up clumps of Henry hair, but I’ve discovered, to my chagrin, those clumps are magical. They propagate. After I clean one room, they reappear in that room as I’m vacuuming the next. I could vacuum the entire day and still have clumps of dog hair all over the floor. They remind me of tumbleweeds.

I remember all the cigarette ads on TV. Doctors smoked Camels. Pall Malls got filters, but you could still buy the unfiltered. Both my parents smoked them though my mother switched brands years later. “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” Virginia Slims were only for women, tapered for a woman’s hand. “You’re come a long way baby.” Kool had menthol magic. Even Fred and Wilma smoked. On every commercial the cigarette was held by the first two fingers of the right hand. After exhaling, the smoker always smiled.

My father was the best corn and lobster eater I have even seen. He ate his corn with precision going across one row then down to the next with barely a pause. He was a human typewriter. He never left a kernel on the cob. I learned how to eat a lobster from my father. The first lesson was never to sit next to him. He spurted lobster juice. He showed us his steps for getting all the meat. First, pull off the tail and claws then crack, with your hands, the shell so the tail comes out intact. Next I had to use a cracker on the claws and knuckles. My father’s claw meat always came out intact. We learned how to eat the body. First was the tomalley, the green part. Next was the meat in the body. That took some looking. Last were the legs. Biting up the shell was the technique for those. At the end of eating a lobster only the shells should be left.

I have stuff to do. I cleaned part of the deck yesterday. Today I have to finish. I have to plant the flowers in the clay pots and clean the deck chairs and the table. The last deck work is ceremonial. It is the grand opening of the red deck umbrellas.

The heat continues. It is 79° and will stay there all day. I know it is much hotter elsewhere but heat is relative. We don’t usually get this hot until late July or August. The air was still, but now there is a breeze. Last night it rained, but today is sunny with nary a cloud. Our first Monday concert is tonight. We’ll play Mondays all summer. The music is bluegrass.

Yesterday I bought flowers for the deck. I was glad to see the nursery is still filled with plants for sale. I lucked into a buy one get one free sale of annuals. Because I saved money, I bought a giant hanging plant. Once these flats are planted in the deck boxes I’ll go back for more.

When I was a kid, we never had fans and air conditioning was unknown. The house was dark because of the covered windows, but it was hot. I wore shorts and sleeveless blouses every day. The shorts were not Bermuda’s and were not short shorts. I always wore white sneakers.

In early June of 1969, I was twenty one and newly graduated from college. At the end of the month, I left for Philadelphia, for staging, the last few days before in-country Peace Corps training. During staging, our teeth got checked, we got yellow fever shots, met one on one with psychologists, had lectures with slides of Ghana and got to know each other. Some people never showed up for staging. I guessed they got cold feet. I remember my new friends, Bill and Peg, and I did a bit of Philadelphia touring. We missed a few of the group lectures, but nobody noticed. I remember on the day we left for Ghana the sidewalk in front of the hotel was piled high with luggage. We waited for the busses to take us to the airport. I have a bus picture.

I think about turning points, of changing lanes, of being somewhere unexpected. When I was a kid, I always knew I’d go to college. I did, no surprise there. I majored in English, but I didn’t want to teach. I wanted to be a lawyer, a female Perry Mason, but, even more, I wanted the Peace Corps. On a cold January Sunday, the special delivery came. I had been accepted. My life changed as soon as I called and accepted the invitation. I taught English as a second language in Ghana. I loved teaching. Good-bye Perry Mason. Hello high school English.

I retired early. This summer it will be twenty years. That still surprises me.

The day is dark and damp. It is cool at 73°, but the humidity is 95%. The breeze is so strong that at times even the trunks of the pine trees are swaying. Rain is predicted.

Yesterday I did get the screens on the doors and safely got the storms to the cellar. My only wound was when my hand brushed up against the wood on the inside door when I was taking the storm out. I split the skin a bit. Now I have a black and blue hand. That’ll teach me to do chores.

When I was growing up, summer Sundays were often lazy days. I’d lie on the living room rug to read the funnies. I remember I had to wash my hands after reading the paper as my fingers were black, covered in ink. We didn’t have our usual Sunday dinners. My mother didn’t want the oven heating the kitchen. We’d have burgers or sandwiches with either potato salad or peppers and eggs on the side. Supper was pretty much the same. I favored bologna sandwiches with orange mustard. My sandwiches were always a bit lumpy. The bologna came in a roll, and I could never cut it straight. It still tasted the same.

My hometown was filled with churches. Some are historic. They were close together almost like some herd of animals or a flock of birds. Two were on corners cross the street from each other while a third was on an adjacent corner. That block was called church corner. My church, St. Patrick’s, was at the end of the next block and another church was one block down. St. James has a flat topped steeple. I always thought it looked unfinished. There was a Jewish synagogue a distance out of town near Weiss Farm. I remember it was a neat looking building. I don’t remember ever going into the other churches when I was a kid. I only remember going into a couple for church fairs with my mother when I was an adult.

Nala did it again. Yesterday I put the filled trash bag from the basket on the kitchen floor. I was going to move it to the trunk. When I went out to empty the vacuum of ants, I saw fresh trash on the driveway so I checked the bag in the kitchen. Nala he dragged it to the dining room and opened it. Trash, including coffee grounds, was all over the floor. I screamed. She ran.

I have a couple of errands. It is too humid to do any sort of cleaning for which I am thankful. After the errands, I’ll loll.

The thunder started last night with a few rumbles. The rain came later in spurts. By the time I went to bed it had stopped for the meanwhile. The morning is damp and dark with a bit of a mist. My plans to get the deck summer ready are thwarted. I will get a few plants and animal food, but I’ll do house chores instead of outside chores. It is time to put in the door screens which I dread as the storm door windows are really heavy. I go backwards one step at a time down the cellar stairs. May God be with me.

Henry update: I switched dog door flaps and removed the frosted one for the clear one. Henry now goes in and out the dog door. Henry is a peculiar dog.

When I was a kid, the milk man came every week. I could hear the rattling of the bottles in the wire carrier as he walked from his truck to the backyard. At first he put them on the top step then later we had a container for them. We had bottles of white milk and one bottle of chocolate milk delivered. We mixed the chocolate with the white. The chocolate went fast. The backup was Nestle’s Quik.

My grandparents lived down the street from the First National grocery store. My grandmother did the shopping. I don’t think my grandfather ever saw the inside of a grocery store. He had his roles, and she had hers. My grandmother always dressed up to go anywhere. She wore her day dress, stockings, not nylon, and clunky black shoes. She never learned to drive so she walked to the store. She took her basket with her, the sort you hauled behind you. She went shopping a couple of times a week.

Even through margarine was cheaper, we had butter. My mother told us how during the war they had to use lard because butter was rationed. The lard came with a packet of something yellow you added to it to make the lard look like butter. It tasted awful. That was why she always bought butter.

In Ghana I had to make do. I could buy butter in tins, in cans, but it was expensive so I used margarine, also in tins. It had a weird yellow color. For special meals, like for holidays, I splurged and bought butter. It lasted a long time in the tin. I never buy margarine now.