When I went to get the papers, I saw the shaded parts of the street still had frost, and the car at the house facing my street had a frosted back window, but I’m guessing the white rime will have a short life and disappear quickly as it is 40° even this early at 8:15. The morning air had that sweet smell cooler spring mornings have and it gave hint of the warmer day to come.
Consider this a Part II as I went to breakfast in between. The place was as crowded as it gets in summer, and I had to wait in line for a booth. My friend Pat with whom I have breakfast every Sunday always figures they’re people down for the weekend. I think the warmer weather brings out the locals earlier in the day. By the time we’d finished, the crowd had miraculously disappeared and five booths were empty.
Today is Palm Sunday. My mother used to keep her palm fronds behind the crucifix over her bed. I remember them there, the only things on that wall, from when I was a kid. The frond was so long it used to stick out from both sides of the crucifix. After mass on this day each year, she’d take down and toss out the old dry, brittle frond and replace with the new ones given out at the end of mass. I remember seeing all the people walk out of the church down the long steps each carrying a frond. I knew they were called palm fronds, but I thought they were named after the Sunday, and it wasn’t until I was a little older that I connected them to a palm tree, and it took a little bit longer than that to connect them to the liturgy.
Today is also April Fools’ Day. My mother would call and try to catch us, and my sister Moe was her favorite target as Moe was easily caught. The rest of us were a bit more skeptical, but my mother usually concocted a plausible story which we were hesitant to dismiss. She sometimes got us all. I used to try to fool my friends, and I could tell a whopper, as I had learned from the best, my mother, to make my story believable. I loved it when my friends fell for it. I’d yell, “April Fools’ Day,” and laugh and so would they. That was all you could do if caught!
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