Keep the Coffee Comimg

We’re still stuck with a cloudy day and a chill in the air. The high will only be in the low 60’s, and the clouds will hang around all day. Today is an ugly day, a socks and sweatshirt day.

My uke and I will be busy this week. My dance card is filled with uke events starting tonight with my usual practice. Tomorrow is my lesson and a concert. The second concert is Saturday. When will I fit in my naps?

When I think about growing up, I remember walking and biking all over my town. I used to go to the square. Back then it was filled with stores. My favorite was Woolworths. It seemed like a kids’ store with its toy counter and comic books on a spinning rack. The floor was wooden and squeaky. The shelves too were wooden. None of them were tall. I’d have a dime. I could buy a comic book or a balsa plane or even jacks. There were yo-yos, but I was really bad with yo-yo tricks, no sleeping and no walking the dog. If getting knots in the string was a trick, that one I could do. Most times I’d buy a comic book. It lasted. Balsa planes didn’t. Jacks were my second choice. My mother had taught me jacks, and I never could beat her. I used to get them in my stocking and sometimes my Easter basket so I had assorted jacks and small red rubber balls stored in cigar boxes. I’d spin the comics carousel and then pick my comic book. I was partial to Little Lulu, Archie, Casper or Superman. I remember stopping on my way home to sit on a bench by the town hall to read my new comic.

At the drug store, I’d sometimes sit at the soda fountain and buy a vanilla coke. I’d watch my coke being made with a squirt of coke syrup, some vanilla and soda water. I always used a straw, back then a paper straw. My favorite stop was Middlesex Drugs. It was the best with its marbled topped soda fountain and spinning red covered stools. I always shopped there at Christmas for the usual, a handkerchief for my father and perfume for my mother. I doubt my mother ever used the cheap perfume, but she always gushed when she opened the present.

Now, the only places where I enjoy shopping are the small shops, the one and only shops though I make one exception, the Ben Franklin store. It is a throwback. I swear it was a Woolworth’s in its other life.

The rain is still falling. I have started to build the ark. I haven’t told the dogs yet. They’ll be surprised. It is supposed to rain all day. It will be chilly, in the low 60’s, and also quite windy. Even the branches are swaying. I’m in my winter ensemble which includes a sweatshirt and socks. Days like today mean cozy and warm.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of TV while sitting on the floor close to the screen and, despite my mother’s prediction, I did not go blind. TV was black and white then, but it was still a bit of a miracle. I had favorite programs, many of them westerns, but I guess I got my fill back then as I am no longer a fan of westerns except for a few of the old ones like The Lone Ranger. I still watch that every now and then.

I have always wondered why people didn’t notice that, except for the glasses, Clark Kent and Superman looked exactly alike and that Clark was never there when Superman was. Later I learned about suspension of disbelief, and it works for everything, especially my B science fiction movies. I enjoy the stories by ignoring the silly, even ridiculous, plots, by suspending disbelief. I had an answer when I was asked, “How can you watch this?”

This morning I had to grind more coffee before I could make a pot of what I suspect was the original nectar from the Gods. The aroma of the coffee beans was, and please excuse this as I couldn’t help myself, heavenly.

Where I lived in Ghana, there were no TV’s and computers were way off into the future. Telephones were scarce, and all calls from my school were long distance if they connected at all. My principal had a phone in her office, but I never saw her use it. Radios were the news and entertainment centers, but I didn’t have one of those either. Ghana had several newspapers, most of them graphic, but I didn’t buy those either. Each week the Peace Corps sent us the NY Times section The Week in Review, their attempt to keep us connected. It didn’t work. All of that news was in another world, far away from mine.

I remember once when I was sitting in the yard of the Hotel d’Bull, the only decent hotel in town, and having Coke after market shopping. There were a couple of white guys sitting at another table. That was a rare sight in my town. I guessed I was a rare sight to them as well because they asked me what I was doing there. I told them I lived there, in Bolga, that I was a Peace Corps volunteer. They had trouble digesting that. They couldn’t wait to leave. I felt sad for them.