Keep the Coffee Comimg

The day is already hot at 82°. I’ve turned on the air conditioner. Both dogs are now stretched out and sleeping. Neither one was out for too long earlier. Poor Nala doesn’t do well in the heat. She pants a lot.

When I was a kid, our house, a duplex, was close to the top of a huge hill and was on the corner of the street. It had a big, grassy lawn in front. There was a set of stairs from the street up to the pathway to the front door. I never rode my bike down that lawn but, instead, rode it down the smaller grassy hill next to the stairs then I’d glide to the big hill. Down that hill was the fastest ride. Up that hill was the slowest. About halfway up, I’d have to stop riding and start walking my bike. The hill was just a mite too steep.

In the winter, that hill was perfect for sledding. We’d walk to the top of the hill, run and then hit the sleds on our stomachs with our legs bent at the knee and the bottom of our legs in the air. Only little kids sat up on their sleds. We flew down that hill. At the bottom, we’d grab the rope at the front of the sled and trudge up the hill for another run. When our lips turned blue, it was time to go inside.

My mother aways made breakfast so we’d be fortified for school. She made oatmeal in winter, the sort you had to boil. It always had a few lumps, but if you added milk and tons of sugar, the lumps didn’t matter. She’d cook soft-boiled eggs. She’d make toast and cut the pieces into strips which fit through the tops of the eggs, perfect pieces for dipping. Sometimes we’d have cereal. We always added sugar to the cereal. I drank cocoa and my brother drank tea. My mother served the tea from a ceramic teapot. It always seemed a bit fancy. The cocoa was made in my cup with half boiling water and half milk. It had bubbles around the inside rim.

When I watch old TV shows like Leave It to Beaver or The Donna Reed Show, there is always a stack of white bread on the dinner table. I always wondered about that. Why squishy white bread? I’d understand rolls or slices of Italian bread but I just don’t get the white bread.

The sky is light blue and cloudless. The sun is eye squinting bright. A slight breeze stirs the air. Everything is quiet. Today is a lovely day.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. The churches were filled. Everyone was dressed in church clothes. Women wore skirts or dresses and hats. Men wore suits, white shirts and ties. The stores were all closed except for small, corner stores which sold essentials like milk and bread and the Sunday paper. Sunday was family day. It was Sunday dinner day, the most formal meal of the week.

My grandmother, my father’s mother, was a terrible cook. She cooked bland food. Spaghetti sauce was a can of stewed tomatoes poured right out of the can on to the pasta. My father’s bland palate reflected his mother’s lack of cooking expertise. To him, garlic belonged only on garlic bread and shrimp scampi, nothing else. Asparagus came from a can and bent at the middle. Hummus was wallpaper paste, a review gleaned from looking at it, not tasting it, as he judged food by looks. For him, the simpler the food the better. Give him roast beef, mashed potatoes and maybe corn, niblet not creamed, and he’d be in food heaven.

In Ghana, on Sunday, my students attended a service on school grounds, in the cafeteria. For it, they wore their Sunday school cloths: three piece dresses, a top, bottom to the ankles and a wraparound the waist piece. Each of the four classes had its own cloth pattern. Sunday was also visitors’ day. Students would wear their own dresses. Photographers came and took pictures. It was also the day Bill, Peg and I bought dinner from a chop bar by the lorry park. Translation: a small shed like spot with maybe a table or two and a few chairs which was at the parking lot where all the busses waited for riders before they left for other places. The food was cooked out back. Mostly we bought fufu and soup. Translation: the slightly sour, spongy dough made from boiled and pounded starchy food crops like plantains, cassava and yams — or a combination of two or more — in a very large mortar with a pestle. The soup was whatever was on the stove: light soup (nkrakra), groundnut soup (nkate nkwan), palm nut soup (abenkwan), green vegetable soup (abun abun), egusi soup and more. I was an okra stew fan. Fufu was eaten with your right hand. Your hand got a bit messy.

Today, I’ll probably have hot dogs. I took a pack out of the freezer. I figure I’m not violating New England cultural norms by eating hot dogs on a Sunday. I didn’t have any last night.