Today is warm and lovely. Sunlight slants through the oak trees in the backyard. Henry stays outside longer in the warmth. I sometimes go out with him and wait on the deck. He plays his deck game with me, run up one set of stairs and across the deck then down the other set then up again. We’ll play later as the bird feeders need to be refilled.

When I was a kid, going to mass on Sundays was mostly an inconvenience. If I didn’t go with my father, my brother and I walked together to a later mass. We could go upstairs or down. Our favorite upstairs pew was the last one in the church. It held only two people. It had no kneeler so we had to sit the whole mass. We loved it. Downstairs was much smaller and sometimes we had to stand in the back. There were racks on the back wall with free pamphlets and saint stuff. I used to read them while mass was going on. When I got older, I cleverly hid the book I was currently reading in the follow along with the mass book. Mass always seemed to end quickly.

The best parts of every Sunday were the comics in the newspaper and Sunday dinner, aways special, always a roast of some sort. When I was young, we had turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas so it was never part of a Sunday dinner. We had roast chicken, pork and my personal favorite, roast beef. The potatoes were always mashed. The other vegetables were mostly canned except for carrots. We didn’t like the carrots until my mother mashed them and mixed them in with the mashed potatoes. She somehow explained away the orange color, and we bought it.

Henry and I hear sounds. I turn off the TV volume to check and mostly the sounds disappear, muted by the remote. A few keep going. They’re real. Henry hears the barks from the house on the corner across the street. I heard bells last night. I looked out the doors and saw nothing. I’m still curious. Henry will be sleeping soundly on the couch, or seemingly soundly, when he’ll jump up, start howling and run to one door or the other where he’ll continue his howling. That scared the heck out of me until I realized Henry is the dog who cries maybe I heard a noise. Now, I open the door so he’ll see nothing. He does look and so do I just in case.

My family sent me a cassette recorder as a gift the first year I was in Ghana. It came with a few cassettes and a mixed tape my sister made of songs off the radio. When I listened to that tape, all of a sudden my uncle started to sing. He had seen my sister taping and added a song, a Bing song. One of the tapes was Clouds, Joni’s second album. My sister knew I loved Joni.

This is my favorite Joni song. Africa always comes to mind. The three of us, Bill, Peg and I, would listen as we played games on most nights. We found wonderful ways to amuse ourselves, and we never tired of listening.

Today is Joni’s birthday. She is 77. How can that be?

This morning we have a President-Elect. Pennsylvania put Joe Biden over the top. President Trump now joins only five other presidents who did not win re-election. I can finally stop watching the news channels.

The weather is superb for the third day in a row. I think it is even warmer than yesterday. The high could reach 70˚. I need to go out to do a bit of grocery shopping, and I’m glad.

Yesterday I cleaned my little library and added two books. I know it is being visited as there was space for both books, and other books have been added by my little library patrons, including some kid’s books.

When I was a kid, I would loved today, a perfect day for bike riding. I would have left in the late morning, after my favorite shows. Most times I’d pack my lunch and take off by myself. There were different routes I followed through town. One road led to the zoo, another to uptown, the third went pass the golf course to the next town, and the last road, the best road, was Main Street, and it led everywhere.

I have pictures in my memory drawers from when I was a kid. Many, even the simple memories, are still vivid. The bike rack at my school was wooden and painted dark green. It was under the trees. I’d slide my bike into the rack and leave it. I had no lock. My bike was always there at the end of the day. I expected it to be.

I remember the aisles in the movie theater. They were a slight slant. The last row was where couples would sit and make-out. We always laughed. We were kids, and it was the matinee.

The soda fountain at Middlesex Drugs had a granite counter top. Silver straw holders were on the granite. You had to lift the top of the holder and pull the straw out from the pile. They were paper straws. I always ordered a vanilla coke. The soda jerk pushed the container lever to spurt the vanilla syrup in my glass then he’d add the soda water and mix the two. I always sat close to the action so I could watch. It was well worth the dime.

I knew all the big hills and how far I could make it up the hills until I had to walk my bike. I still remember the day I was able to pedal all the way up the hill where I lived. I stopped in front of my house and cheered.