The rain came during the night. It started around midnight. I could hear the drops on the air conditioner. I listened a short while then fell asleep. When I let Gracie out this morning, the driveway was still wet so I figured it rained for a while. The day is dreary, dark and damp. The breeze is strong. It blows the flags in the front yard so they flutter back and forth. Even the oak trees bend.

Yesterday I complained about having little to say then filled the page with small memories, the day to day stuff. I forget sometimes that something memorable doesn’t have to be big. I have these odd pictures hanging around my memory drawers. They relate to pieces of my life but aren’t important in themselves. They are part of the whole, but for some reason, they stand alone.

High school graduation was huge. It was my biggest step forward. The whole ceremony is somewhere in my head, but I have a few small, bright pictures of that day. One is of my dad in the audience. I had just received a scholarship, and he was mouthing to me, “How much is it?” My mother made lasagna for the party afterward graduation. I’m sure there was plenty of food, but that is all I remember.

College left several images up front. My friends and I sat at the same table in the canteen every morning. We drank lots of coffee and each of us did the crossword puzzle in the paper. It was a race to see who would finish first. I remember Fridays in my cosmology class. Three or four of us sat in the back against the wall. It was for support because between our 8:30 class and cosmology at 1:30 we went drinking. Vodka and orange juice was our drink of choice. It was, after all, still morning. I remember standing in my cap and gown downstairs from the auditorium. One of my professors who was from the history department came by to wish us well. I had had her for two classes, two of my favorite classes. She was stopping to chat with soon to be graduates she knew. I was one of them. She asked us all what we were doing after graduation. When I told her Peace Corps, she seemed thrilled and offered to send books or whatever else my school might need. I remember her well.

The flight to Ghana has three singular memories. One was flying over the cape, and I watched with my face to the window until it was out of sight. Another was my stuck seat belt. It got caught between the seat and the wall, and I couldn’t use it. That was after a fuel stop. The stewardesses, as they were called in those days, were going up the aisle checking the seat belts. I just held the one side of mine, and she kept walking. The third picture was flying over the Sahara. The sand seemed to go on forever. I could see ripples. I could see Africa for the first time.