The temperature is 66° right now, and I’m delighted. I even sat in the sun on the deck to read my papers, something I’ve avoided for days. It will get warmer later, into the mid 70’s, but the nights and early mornings will stay chilly for the next couple of days.

More great whites are off Chatham. They can’t pass up those free meals just lying in the sun waiting. Swimmers were warned out of the water yesterday at South Beach as one of the sharks wasn’t all that far off shore. The great whites have become tourist attractions.”Move a bit closer to that fin, Alex, so I can get it in the picture.”

My mother used to pack lunches for us when we went on our adventures. We’d be gone all day. One summer was spent at the zoo where we got to feed the animals, including Babe the elephant. That was my favorite summer of all. We got to be friends with one of the workers who took us behind the cages where the public couldn’t go and taught us how to feed the small animals. We, my brother and I, would fill our buckets with all sorts of fruits and vegetables and walk down the lines of cages feeding each animal in turn. I remember the cages were wooden and painted green. Most of the animals in them were small ones like raccoons. Babe had her own place as she was the big attraction, and we’d go in right with her to leave dinner. People were on the other side of the gate, and I always felt a bit self-important as I went about my task, and sometimes I even patted the elephant for effect.

It was always a long day at the zoo, and we lived at the totally opposite end of town. My mother sometimes had enough money to give us bus fare one way, and we used it for the ride home. If not, we walked, though plodded is probably the better description.