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.