Thank you for all the encouragement. I have high hopes that Coffee will stay at its current address. I have joined Website Builder and will explore the site this weekend. I wonder if it has a view of the water.

Harper Lee has died. Her To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite of all novels. I have reread it and The Catcher in the Rye during various stages of my life. I always find something I missed, and I learn new things mostly about people. Running around in my memory drawers are quotes which made such sense they stuck. “There’s only one kind of folks, folks,” is Scout’s view. Maybe it should be our view, all of our views.

When I was a kid, I was a wise ass. I know you find that difficult to believe, and you’re all probably shaking your heads in disbelief as you read this. It was my contention back then that my remarks, the ones which caused trouble, were involuntary. They just flew out of my mouth skipping my brain which might have cautioned me. My father was usually the receiver of my sass. He was an easy target who failed to see the humor. Mostly I just got yelled at and sent to my room. My father was, as I’ve mentioned before, a yeller, but I had learned at an early age how to ignore him but look contrite as if I were listening with the whole of me. Being set to my room was a gift, but he didn’t know that. It would be my main punishment until my teens when he’d ground me. Luckily he felt guilty and usually ungrounded me after a lecture, a small price to pay for the return of freedom.

My mother started out a yeller, but she could never carry it off. She made us laugh, but we pretended to accept the seriousness of her rant. One time, the last time we laughed, she made an unexpected return and caught us. That changed her whole approach. She’d throw her slipper and make us bring it back. We did, but reluctantly, knowing that her slipper could become a weapon in her hands. Once she threw a book at me, a dictionary, but I ducked. She got mad and left. I almost wanted to stop her and tell her never to leave as that was the worst approach to discipline. My advice to her would have been to escalate.

We weren’t really bad kids. We were mostly annoying. We’d yell and fight with each other, and that drove my mother crazy. She’d tell us to get out of the house before she did something for which she’d be sorry. We never believed her as my mother was easy going, but we left anyway. We’d grab our bikes and go off riding. It was my favorite punishment.