Yes, it remains hot and humid, but the deck has a breeze so I’ll go back when I finish here. While I was reading the papers outside, I stopped a few times, as I usually do, to watch the birds. This morning it was an amazing variety. A hummingbird dropped by and took nectar from the zinnias, but he was too far away for a good picture. This was his third visit so I’m now counting the hummingbird as a regular. The male oriole was back for some grape jelly, and I was able to catch a picture of him on a nearby branch. A fledgling made all sorts of noises from a branch by the feeders. He was a young titmouse still sporting fluffy feathers. My regulars too were there in big numbers, and they ignore me so I get a close-up view. I noticed one of the feeders needs to be filled, an afternoon chore.

When I was a kid, we used mustard or mayonnaise on sandwiches. Ketchup was for hamburgers and French fries. Piccalilli was for hot dogs. The bread we used was always white and mostly soft. It beaded when you took a small piece and rolled it. For sandwiches I ate bologna. My mother always bought a roll of it, and I’d cut it for my sandwich. Most times the piece was thick on one side and thin on the other. I wasn’t the best slicer. A friend of mine’s father introduced me to hot peppers, and they became a sandwich regular, even with the bologna. I still get hot pepper in my subs. My mother bought liverwurst for my father. He’d spread it on bread and add some onion. It looked awful so I never tried it. Much later in my life, I tried and love pâté so I gave liverwurst another chance figuring the two were distant cousins. I liked it.

When I was a freshman in college, a good friend was from an Italian family, and I used to go home with her for weekends. For spaghetti, her mother made gravy instead of sauce, and her meatballs were the stuff of dreams. My friend’s father was a butcher, and he brought home sandwich meats I’d never heard of before. They were all foreign and exotic. I ate mortadella, capicola, both regular and hot, soppressata, proscuitto and finocchiona. Even the cheese was exotic, the provolone and the mozzarella. The bread came in loaves which had to be cut. For dessert we had Italian cookies and pastries. I felt like an exchange student.

My friend left school, and the family also moved so I lost track. I wish I could thank them. They made me a fearless eater of the unknown.