Today is warmer than yesterday with a high of 57°. Partly cloudy is the forecast. When I woke up, the sky was all clouds, but right now, I can see a glimpse of blue and some light trying to break through the clouds. It might just turn out to be a spring day.

Lately, I have been into jigsaw puzzles. 500 pieces is just a perfect size for my table. A new one came yesterday, an Easter puzzle with eggs, chocolate and peeps. I ended up buying a few peeps after starting this puzzle. They are open and on shelves so they can get hard. 

When I was a kid, I never counted the days until Easter. That was only a Christmas thing. We’d get new clothes and the Easter Bunny would leave a basket, the only festivities to celebrate the day. 

One Christmas, when I was in high school, I got a bulletin board with pink fabric instead of cork. I hung it over my door. On it I put paper memories like tickets, letters, pictures and some invitations. I always kept it current. When I lived in Ghana, my parents moved. They brought along my bulletin board still covered with my memories. When I got home, I took it with me to the cape. Somewhere along the line I had to replace the pink board. Old age had taken its toll.

I still have a bulletin board in my den. The middle is cork. It is really old. It is covered with all different memories. A sloth calendar hangs from the cork. Hanging off the corners are lanyard name tags from different events, a lei, a Mardi Gras mask and some green St. Patrick’s Day necklaces. I hung a few things on it from my time in Ghana. I have an invitation from the governor of the Upper Region where I lived to a cocktail party at his house in 1969. I always got invited. I never understood why. I have a luggage tag for Ghana Airways and the front of a Ghana Tree chocolate bar celebrating the second republic dated 1969. I have some pins, a Peace Corps cloth decoration and an invitation to the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps Ghana in 2011, my first trip back. I don’t keep this bulletin board too current, not from disinterest but more from lack of stuff to hang. I rearrange things which I enjoy doing. I get to remember when I hold each piece. 

Back when I got that first board, I never realized how important a bulletin board could be. Now, I know. Each board is a repository of memories of people and places and most especially of my life across time. 

The morning is damp and ugly. It is cloudy and will stay cloudy all day. It is 44° now and won’t get much higher. I have a few errands, and that’s about it on my to do list. 

When I was a kid, Saturday was the best day of the week. I spent the morning sitting on the floor in front of the TV risking blindness, cereal bowl in hand, always Rice Krispies and watching my favorite programs. Most of the shows were westerns. I remember them all. I have never had a dog as well trained as Rin Tin Tin, familiarly known as Rinty. Annie Oakley was a woman sheriff, a novelty. She did great stunts on her horse. Sky King flew a plane, another novelty. I loved Captain Midnight, the first science fiction program I remember watching. The Lone Ranger was one of my favorites. I thought his theme song was exciting and perfect as Silver seemed to gallop to the sound. I didn’t know it was The William Tell Overture until I was much older. Even now I still call it the Lone Ranger’s theme song. Roy and Dale ended their program singing Happy Trails to You. I still know all the words. I think one of my memory drawers must be overflowing with the memories of those long ago shows. I remember the horses most of all: Silver, Scout, Champion, Buttercup, Trigger and Tornado, Zorro’s horse, all sit in one corner of that memory drawer. 

Saturday night’s dinner was a New England universal. We ate hot dogs, baked beans and brown bread. The brown bread was canned and had ridges from the can. My mother fried the brown bread and slathered it with butter. She bought canned beans, B&M baked beans, and doctored them a bit. Saturday night was bath night. What I remember most is my sisters screaming. My mother tortured them when she combed out the snarls after they got their hair washed. Back then there was no anti-snarl product. That screaming was also a Saturday ritual. 

Sometimes now, when I get to the kitchen, I forget why I’m there. I guess there isn’t  much room left in my memory drawers for any more memories, even one from the den to the kitchen.