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.