The morning is warmish at 41˚. Hardly any wind is a good thing. The blue sky and sunshine make the day pretty. When I look out the den window, I can see the bare branches of the oak tree against the blue, and I can watch the tops of the pines in the back of the yard swaying every now and then. I’m just hanging around the house today. I have a few projects in mind. Yesterday I cleaned, added books and organized my little library. I was pleased to see people had added books.

When I was a kid, I was gone most of the day on Saturdays. My mother would ask where I was going, and I’d tell her around town. She was content with that answer. Because my movie theater did not have matinees when the weather got warm, I’d bike or walk all over town. I had favorite stops, most gone now. One was the junk man’s house. It was on a small street around the corner from the town’s horse barn, also gone. The junk man had a porch on his house which sagged from the weight of all the papers. There was another building next to his house also filled with rags and papers inside and out. For some strange reason, I remember both buildings were gray. The junkman used to ride around town in his wagon shouting for papers and rags. The horse barn was usually open, and I could see the horses in their stalls. Sometimes I got to pat one. Another stop was the golf course where I hunted for wayward golf balls in the bushes and across the street from the course. I also got some balls out of the water hazards when I didn’t mind getting a bit wet.

I was usually by myself in my wanderings. One in a while my brother joined me, but his favorite spots were different than my favorite spots, but we did agree about the zoo and Weiss Dairy Farm being the best Saturday roaming spots, but that was too many years. Now, the farm is no longer a dairy. It sells mostly mulch and fertilizer. You can see the big mounds from the road. The zoo, though, is still here. It is even bigger and better. It is now the most interesting place in town.