On the weather front, today is warm but cloudy. On the tooth front, my dentist is out-of-town. The ice skate extraction from Castaway is beginning to have some appeal, and all the movies I’ve seen with crazed dentists are flashing through my memory banks. The worst is the scene in The Marathon Man when SS dentist Szell tortures Dustin Hoffman by sticking a probe into his teeth. I swear I screamed along with Dustin. Dentists are never heroes.

I have a former student who is an oral surgeon. I called his office, whined a little and mentioned the ice skates so they are seeing me at two, but I suspect I’ll have to wait until Thursday for any work because of the blood thinner I take. Okay, I’m done with the teeth talk. It’s creeping me out!

Today is quiet. The birds are the only sounds I hear. The neighborhood is deserted. I like it quite after the hubbub of the weekend.

During the summer, we didn’t have too many Sunday family dinners. The kitchen was small and keeping the oven on made the room swelter. Mostly we had barbecues, meat cooked outside but eaten inside. My dad would put his grill by the back steps so he could sit and read while the meat cooked. He used charcoal briquets as did most backyard cooks back then. My dad was a member of the use as much charcoal lighter fluid as you can school of thought. The height of the flames determined status. My dad was king.

When we moved down the cape and had a large yard, my dad would sit on a wooden lawn chair and tend his grill. He’d have a few drinks. Every now and then we’d hear the whoosh of the flames and knew fluid had been added then we’d check to make sure my dad hadn’t set himself on fire. He did that on occasion.

When they moved off Cape, the new house also had a big yard, and my father assumed his rightful position outside keeping an eye on the meat. He liked to use both a hibachi and a grill to accommodate the growing offerings as the menu had expanded well beyond hot dogs and hamburgers of my childhood. Now he cooked chicken, steak tips, Chinese sausages, kielbasa and even pork tenderloins.

What amazed me was that my father always cooked the meat just right despite the fires and the flames and the pops of his favorite alcohol passed to him through the open window. He was the backyard master of the grill.