The wind is blowing. The top branches of the oak trees are swaying. It is a lovely day, a sunny day. The temperature is 74°. My house, though, is cold. It holds the night chill. I had to put on a shirt with long sleeves.

When I was a kid, Saturday was my dad’s chore day. In the morning, he’d collect his cleaned and starched shirts at the Chinese laundry up town, and he’d leave his dirty shirts until the next Saturday. He’d get a trim at the small barber shop just a short way up the street from the laundry. He’d sometimes drop-in to visit a few friends at some stores uptown. In the summer, when he’d get home, he’d mow the lawn and rake the grass. My father loved his lawns. In the fall, he’d rake leaves across the lawn, down the grassy hill into the gutter below the lawn and the sidewalk and then rake them into piles for burning. The gutter was the safe place to burn them. I remember the smoke billowing into the air and the sweet aroma of the leaves burning. On another fall Saturday, once it started getting cold, my father would climb a ladder and remove the screens from the windows. He’d then carry one storm window at a time up the ladder and replace the screen. The screens were stored in the cellar.

My parents had moved off-cape when I was in the Peace Corps. I’d visit for weekends. In the summer, my father always showed off his lawn to me. It was cut in a pattern of rows. It was his pride and joy.

Saturday has always been my favorite day of the week, a play day. When I was a kid, it meant Saturday mornings in front of the TV and Saturday afternoons either at the matinee uptown or on my bike all over town and even into the next towns. When I was in Ghana, Saturday was a day to shop either at the market or to one of the kiosks lining the road. Some Saturday nights the Hotel d’Bull in town showed a movie in the courtyard though I always sat on the roof where there were tables and a few chairs. When I was teaching here, I never did school work on a Saturday. It was still my play day.

I retired nineteen years ago. Since then, I always say every day is a Saturday.