The day is cloudy and windy but quite warm, 61°. Those leaves I mentioned that were hanging on the oak tree are now on my deck. Every time I look out the window, I see more of them fall, victims of the wind. If I hadn’t been outside earlier, I would have thought it was cold. The day has that look about it.

When I was in elementary school, I loved geography class. Our books were filled with all sorts of information about each country and had the most wonderful pictures of faraway places. I still remember the picture of Christ the Redeemer standing with arms stretched on top of what I thought was a giant mountain. I probably didn’t know the word magnificent then, but that’s how it looked to me. Another picture was so beautiful I’ve never forgotten it. The picture was of a windmill in Holland surrounded by tulips. The windmill was in the background, and the front of the picture was filled with the colorful tulips, a flower I didn’t know and had never seen in real life. I lived in a region of  gardens filled with pansies. I remember reading about coffee growing in South America and how rice grew in paddies. We memorized the capitals of most countries and had to find them on the giant map in the front of the room. The nun would give us a long wooden pointer, and we’d find the country and then place the tip of the pointer on it. I learned all about the world because of those classes, and I learned we were just a small part of that world. The big map taught me that.

My last geography class was in the eight grade. High school was too crowded with other classes to include it. I missed geography. Algebra just didn’t have the same allure as those faraway places and amazing pictures.