Keep the Coffee Comimg

Lat night was cooler, down to the 70’s, so I turned off the AC. This morning the house is still cool, but that won’t last. It will be in the 80’s today and most of the week. I will hibernate.

My inner sloth is still reeling. Yesterday I cross off the chores on my to-do list. I scrubbed all the deck chairs and swept the deck, well most of it. I’ll finish the rest today. I need a new broom.

When I was a kid, I loved walking around uptown checking out the stores. I remember there were three drug stores close to each other. I never wondered about that. Middlesex Drug was the fanciest. It had the best soda fountain with a marble top. That is where I’d drink my vanilla cokes made the old way with fizzy water and flavoring. They had counters along the sides and in the middle, and at Christmas I’d wander hoping to find presents for my parents within my meager budget. Pullo’s Rexall Drug was right by the movie theater. It was small. Mr. Pullo, also the pharmacist, used to wear white jackets, the sort Ben Casey always wore. He was one of my father’s friends. Stoneham Pharmacy, Bracciotti’s, was almost next door to Pullo’s. I don’t remember ever shopping there.

One of my favorite stores was the cobbler’s. It was long and narrow and tucked between two other stores. The window was filled with shoes in pairs with Manila tags. The counter too was covered in shoes. The cobbler sat behind the counter working on a shoe held on a metal holder the shape of a shoe. He wore an apron. He always looked old to me.

On the street in the middle of the square used to be a police box. A policeman sat inside and controlled the three sets of attached traffic lights. Signs were on the front. Straight ahead to Route 128 and straight ahead to Route 28. A traffic accident destroyed it.

The square was called up-town while Boston was in-town. I don’t know if everyone called it that, but my mother always did.

The morning is lovely but already hot. It will be in the mid 80’s. I’ll be doing deck work while the back is still shaded. On my to-do list cleaning the chairs sweeping the deck. The potted flowers are beautiful. Their colors are popping after yesterday’s rain. Nala loves lying in the shade on the deck.

I am always amazed at how quiet my neighborhood is on Sundays. There are kids on my street, but they disappear every Sunday. The quiet reminds me of my childhood Sundays when everything was closed, families went together to church and Sunday dinner was special. My bike stayed in the cellar. We hung round the house. I’d read the funnies and watch movies. My father sat in the chair by the picture window and read the paper. My mother was in the kitchen making dinner. The menu always included a roast of some sort, gravy, mashed potatoes and a veggie or two. It was always the best dinner of the week.

During the summer we stayed up late on Sundays. The rest of the year my mother used the pretext that Monday was a school day so we had to go to bed early. I begrudgingly went. I’d try to read a little, but my mother would keep telling me to turn out the light and go to sleep as if I could fall asleep at will. I hated Sunday nights.

I have favorite books. When I was a kid, I loved The Wind in the Willows. I loved Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr. Toad, but I loved Mole the most. I still have my copy of the book. When I read Little Women, I loved the March family, especially Jo, the renegade. The book was a Christmas present. It was a Whitman book with a hard cardboard cover and a colored front of Jo sitting on a lounge and reading. I read that book twice. Robert Lewis Stevenson’s novels were on the favorite list. I read Treasure Island first, but I remember when we went to Maine one year for vacation. There was a small room off the kitchen with wicker furniture and a bookcase filled with books. A Child’s Garden of Verses was one of those books. I read it from cover to cover then read it again. It was as if my life had been captured in poetry, my imagination tapped and my dreams brought to life.

The sloth in me is strong. I have to get moving.