The house was cold this morning at 63˚. I wanted to stay cozy and warm under the comforter, but Gracie got up and didn’t come back so I knew she wanted out. I groused, put on my sweatshirt and my slippers, the ones with the holes in the toes, and came downstairs. Gracie went out and I forgave her after my first sip of coffee.

When I was a kid, our back screen door was wooden. It was dark green around the outside edges. My mother constantly yelled at us not to slam the door on our way out. We never did. It just closed that way on its own. She didn’t buy it. “You could hold it and close it,” was her answer,  a typical parent’s answer because no self-respecting kid was ever going to stop, hold the door and gently close it. We certainly never did and the door kept slamming and she kept yelling. I thought of it as a summer ritual.

I always checked the coin holder on every public telephone. Sometimes I’d find a dime, a wealth of money. I also used to pick up glass bottles and turn them in for pennies. Even pennies had value back then. I never hunted for the bottles, but if I saw one, I’d carry it to the store. The shopman would open the huge cash register, the one with the round metal keys and the ching sound, and get my pennies. I liked it when my pocket jingled. It made me feel wealthy.

The first phone I remember had finger holes for the dialing with numbers and letters. You turned the dial all the way until your finger stopped then you let go and the dial returned to the beginning and then you entered the second letter or another number. The dial made a great clicking sound on its return trip. Our phone number started with ST 6, and that was the start of every phone number in town. We had a party line and had to listen to the rings to figure out if the call was ours or Mrs. McGaffigan’s.

My local school district made the paper when it said that cursive writing would remain a part of the curriculum. It seems many schools no longer teach it. When I was a kid, I swear every classroom in America had the alphabet, those cards from A to Z, posted one after the other over the chalk board. Each card held one capital and one small letter in cursive. I always liked Z, both capital and small. X was another favorite which may yet become the most used letter in the alphabet. Sign your X next to the dotted line.