The day is breezy but really warm. After I got the newspapers, I stood out front for a while admiring my garden. The fall flowers are blooming. A giant red one stands tall among the greenery, and my mums have returned. They are strewn about the garden, and their colors give pleasure to the eye. Fall is generous. It lets us enjoy the last of the garden, and we get to plan for spring. More mums, the ones decorating the deck, are ready to be planted and it’s time to buy daffodil bulbs.

Some of my deck furniture is covered, and no candles hang from the trees. They came down with the hurricane threat, and I never put them back because I knew it was so close to the end of the deck season anyway. I’m sad about that. The deck has been the hub of activity all summer. I sat there every morning with my papers and coffee, read in the afternoon, and at night, we ate wonderful dinners and watched great movies. I kept a list. We saw eight movies. We also ate countless Nonpareils and Raisinettes.

One thing always leads to another. I decided to designate next summer as the summer of film festivals, and I thought made in Boston movies would be a great start for the season. Some movies came to mind immediately, but I still searched, made a list and ended up buying four films including one made in 1950 called Mystery Street. It starts when the skeletal remains of a pregnant prostitute turn up on a cape beach. I’ve seen it before, but I would never have remembered it. I like the Cape being the start of the film, even with skeletal remains. One movie, The Brink’s Job, I couldn’t buy. I wanted it because it takes place in Boston and also has a few scenes filmed in the town where I grew up. The director wanted a town lost in time, one looking more like the 50’s than the late 70’s, so he chose mine. It’s not available here in DVD. There is an import but with a disclaimer: do not expect this product to have perfect DVD video and audio quality so I passed on it.

As I mentioned, one thing always leads to another, and by now you’re probably wondering where the heck this ramble is heading. Deciding on the festival was first, then came making the list, picking the films, hunting for and buying them and then getting two tickets for the bus tour. What tour you ask? Well, all that hunting and link following led to a bus tour which takes you to where all those Boston movies were filmed. It sounded like great fun so I bought a couple of tickets and will take my sister as an early Christmas present.

All I started out to do was to make a list.