Keep the Coffee Comimg

The morning is beautiful with a deep blue sky and a bright sun, but it is a bit cool. I had to shut the window behind me. Tonight will get down to the high 50’s. The weather for the weekend will have warm, even hot, days and cool nights, perfect for sleeping. Summer still holds sway.

The last scheduled event on my dance card is today. I have my third uke concert of the week. Earlier in the week, I had my usual practice and my lesson. The music for this week’s concerts is from a book of favorites. A couple are Creedence and another few are the Eagles. I’m enjoying this book.

I need to wear mittens when I walk round the house. Spiders’ webs are everywhere. I can see them highlighted by the sun on plants and in crevices and corners. I like spiders, not their webs.

My memories of Ghana are still vibrant, even the ones from when I first arrived there so many years ago. I remember the palm trees by the airport. Palm trees had always seemed exotic to me, and I had only seen them in pictures. I grew up with oaks and maples and pine trees. Kiosks lined the roads. Women wore dresses made from bright, beautiful cloth. They carried bundles and baskets on their heads. Babies were wrapped in cloth and carried on their mothers’ backs. My head swiveled from side to side on the bus ride to our first training site but then I fell asleep having not slept at all on the plane ride from Philadelphia to Accra.

I’m watching another YouTube African Walk video. They are mostly walks around Accra. I seldom recognize any place, but the Ghanaians are familiar. Along the sides of the roads are kiosks where women sell oranges or tomatoes or yams and so much more. In one part of the market are piles of clothes, all waiting to be sold. The clothes are called obroni wawu, dead white man’s clothes. Most originated as donations which were then shipped to Africa. Every week millions of pounds of those donated clothes arrive in Accra. In Accra’s markets, you can buy just about anything.

Today will be sunny and warm, fall warm in the high 70’s. Tonight will be in the 60’s, another fine night for sleeping. The morning is lovely. Everything is glistening in the sun. The birds are busy at the feeders. Nala is out. Henry has picked the best spot on the couch for his nap. Everything is right with our little world.

I miss the sounds of my childhood. The milkman used to carry his bottles of milk in a wire holder. The glass bottles clinked when he walked. I liked the clicking of the rotary phone when you dialed numbers. I miss the voice of the real operator, “Directory assistance. How may I help you?” I worked in Woolworth’s for a small while at a cash register. Every number I pressed made a sound, and the money drawer had a bell. I remember the sound of snow when the TV stations ended their broadcasts for the night. The rag man and the knife sharpening man called out from the street. When I was really young, the rag man had a horse and wagon. The horse’s hooves clopped on the street. The sounds of screen doors slamming came from almost every house on the block usually prefaced by a warning, “Don’t slam the door.” I used a film projector when I was first teaching. At the end of the film was the slapping sound from the end of the reel. The different coins had their own sounds when you fed them into the phones in booths. That was how the operator knew you were paying for the call. One of my favorite and most missed sounds was when my mother would call out from the back door, “Supper’s ready. Come in.”

The summer is fleeting. It seems to come and go now at breakneck speeds. Our last Monday ukulele concert on the Hyannis green was last night. We had played a summer full of music. The tourists are still here but in fewer numbers. The weekends will be full, the weekdays not is full. Soon enough, we will get back our Cape Cod back, primed and ready for my favorite season here, fall.