This morning I noticed a few red-yellow leaves on a tree over the deck. Fall has announced its arrival. The season is changing. The days are still warm, but the nights are chilly, perfect for sleeping. The daylight is less. Night comes quicker. Summer is having its last hurrah.

When I was a kid, the change in season meant a change in wardrobe. The mornings were chilly so my mother made us wear a light jacket for the walk to school, but by afternoon, the jacket was too warm. I used to tie it around my waist for the walk home. I remember in the afternoons the sun slanted a different way than it had all summer. After school we played outside in the shadows.

My mother always bought Oreos. They never lasted long. She’d pack them in lunches, and we’d grab a few for snacks. I used to separate the sides. I’d eat the plain side first then scrape my teeth across the white before I ate that side. My sisters used to eat the white and feed the cookies to Duke, our dog. I still love Oreos, double stuffed is my favorite, but I am also partial to chocolate covered Oreos. I think they are my favorite cookie.

I grew up with television. I knew all the theme songs, and I could sing along with all the commercials. All of them seemed to have their own catchy songs. I remember Chew Chew Charlie the engineer who powered his train with Good and Plenty. Bucky Beaver was an orthodontist’s dream. He pitched Ipana, a toothpaste. The Kool-Aid Man broke through the door. I still don’t understand why. My mother never bought Kool-Aid. She said it needed too much sugar. Cigarette commercials were the most common. They sang and danced their way cross the small screen. My parents smoked Pall Malls in the red package. They were unfiltered. I remember my mother picking pieces of tobacco off her tongue.

I have had an empty dance card for a few weeks. I am the sloth queen. I have been resting my leg, and I have also been bored. My house is quiet. I watch TV or I read. Every now and then I nap on the couch. The dogs usually join me so it a fight for space. I usually lose. I hope to rejoin the world next week starting with uke practice on Tuesday. It is time.

The morning is perfect, with lots of sun and a temperature of 72°. The breeze is ever so slight. I can hear only birds. The dogs are quietly napping, one in the hall and the other on the couch. I am taking it easy on the couch, moving as little as possible. My leg feels better this morning as it does each morning. I hope in the afternoon when it usually starts to hurt it will continue to improve.

I have been housebound for a couple of weeks. Mostly I read or watch movies. The last few days, though, I’ve watched the Sox play afternoon games. They are fun to watch. You can never count them out. You hold on to hope until the very last out. That’s always been the way. Every Sox fan is born with an over abundance of hope.

Today is the first day of school around here. I remember the excitement of the first day when I was a kid. Everything was new, my school uniform, lunch box, school bag, notebooks and pencils. We’d gather on the school yard in groups happy to see kids we haven’t seen since school ended. Usually the teacher we were getting was not a surprise, one year a nun and the next year a lay teacher, always a woman. A nun would ring a bell, and we’d line up to go into the buildings, into the old school and the new school. In the new school, the second floor held grades six, seven and eight, two classes of each grade. There were so many of us each classroom was filled with forty or more desks. We were the baby boomers.

I remember my first day of classes in Ghana. I was scared. I had only done student teaching. I had 70 students, 35 in each class of T2’s, second years. I had planned the lessons as I had to give the principal a note book outlining the lessons for each day of the week. At first I didn’t know how much I could get done in a single class. I over planned. During my first class a student raise her hand and said they could not hear me which meant they didn’t understand a word I was saying. They didn’t understand my American accent, and I spoke too quickly. I was devastated. I had meticulously planned that lesson, and it failed. I failed. It took me a while to slow down and change my accent. It took my students a while to hear me. Once they did, though, they understand everything, had caught on to the American English which often seeped through the lessons I taught. I had learned and they were learning.