It’s dreary today and will be again tomorrow. Rain is expected after that. The day is quiet; no one is stirring. Sundays are like that here.

When I drive home after breakfast, I always take the back road through the historical district. I like the old houses anytime but especially this time of year when many are decorated for fall and Halloween. Pumpkins sit on the doorsteps among the mums and the tall nearly dried wheat stalks. One house has its front yard decorated as a graveyard filled with skeletons. I made a mental note (which I’ll probably forget) to go back there with my camera to take a few pictures.

I have no pictures of me at Halloween. Christmas was the holiday my parents seemed to archive the most though I do recognize an Easter picture from when I was around twelve or thirteen. That Easter dress was a favorite of mine. It had the look of one from the roaring twenties with its low waist. To complement my outfit, I wore tiny squat heels and nylon stockings held up by garters. You can’t see either of them, the shoes or the garters, but I remember the whole outfit well. That picture was taken in the front of the house. It’s funny, as in strange, but just about every outside posed shot my parents took was taken at that very same spot. In a Christmas picture, I’m standing there holding the handle bars of my new bike. In another shot, the dog and I are posed together by the front bushes. My siblings too are usually posed by that front door and the bushes by the garden. I don’t remember any pictures taken in the backyard.

The early pictures are mostly black and white. The first color pictures date from my confirmation when I was eleven. My mother is wearing a broad brimmed pink hat and a fox stole my aunt gave her. I was always intrigued by that stole. The fox still had its head.