Mother Nature is especially kind today. It is already in the 70’s. The sun is so amazingly bright everything shines. The sky is a deep blue and not a cloud is in sight. A slight breeze ruffles the leaves on the oak trees. It is time to put my flannel shirts away and almost time for the door screens.

When I was a kid, my grammar school wasn’t all that far away. I always walked no matter the weather. The school is still there and is still in use. It was built in 1910. The building is brick with wood around the doors. It has two doors but we only used one. A statue stands in front of it. The school was too small for all of us. Every classroom was filled. My classes had at least 40 or 45 kids, but there was never noise or chaos. All it took was one nun to keep us in line. Sometimes she didn’t even have to say anything. A look was enough. We didn’t have a gym or a cafeteria. The only bathrooms were in what I always thought of as the cellar. It was a long run from the second floor. I loved the inside of that school. It was all wood, everywhere wood. The stairs dipped a bit from age and made creaky noises the way old stairs do. Each classroom had a cloakroom, also too small for all of us. The coats were hung on the hooks, but there were so many coats on one hook I could push my coat between the hooks, and it wouldn’t fall down. The windows were tall. A long pole was needed to open and shut the windows from the top. That was a boy’s job.

I spent my first and second grade in that school. For my third grade, I was in the cellar of the rectory. There were just too many of us for the school to hold. In fourth grade we did double sessions. I liked sleeping in when I had the afternoon session, but I hated having little time to play after school, especially in winter. For the start of the fifth grade we were bused to the next town over. I remember my nun sitting in the middle of the back seat of the bus. She had her eyes on all of us.

We moved into the new school in the spring. I remember it looked huge with wide corridors and bathrooms on each floor. I was in a room on the first floor. I sat next to the windows. My nun, who was huge, always sat at her desk. She didn’t move. We did.

I graduated from that school three years later. I have never been back.

The dark sky was the first hint of a coming storm and now we have thunder, loud, constant thunder. The dogs are sleeping beside me on the couch, and they lifted their heads when the thunder started. That was their only reaction. They are back to sleep. It is 66°, and the predicted showers have started.

When I was a kid, the worse walk to school was in the rain. My shoes got squishy. My hair dripped. I had to air dry while sitting at my desk. The one plus was at this time of year the classroom air was not saturated with the smell of wet wool wafting in from the cloak room.

I lived in a place with a rainy season where it rained just about every day. It stopped nothing. People went about their business. The only umbrellas in sight were the ones the aunties used in both sun and rain to cover themselves and their food as they sat along the roadside selling their wares. I came to see rain as just a minor inconvenience.

We always had fruit in the house when I was a kid. Mostly we had oranges and apples. In the summer we also had watermelon, with seeds. They all had seeds back then. Spitting the seeds for distance was an important part of the watermelon experience. We used to take pears from the branches hanging over into our yard from a tree on the other side of the fence. The pears were always hard.

I have been a sloth. I did do a bit of vacuuming and changed my bed, but they are the only house things I did. Yesterday afternoon I went for a few groceries. I needed bread, cream and cat food, but I never buy just what I need. I added hot dogs and rolls, dry dog food, pita bread and cheese, a mocha cupcake and a bar of Snickers for me.

Today I have nothing planned. I might go for a ride in the rain with maybe a stop to check out the ocean. The rain isn’t too heavy so I won’t mind getting wet.