By the time I made it to the coffee machine this morning, I was already channeling Nat King Cole:

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

Those days of sodas and pretzels and beer.

Then, with my coffee in hand, I went outside to walk.  For me, those daily morning walks are exercises in stream of consciousness mostly set to music.  I walk past the blooming lavender bushes with their industrious black bees and I hear Gordon Lightfoot:

Oh, sweet Lavender, I must be with you constantly.

Your presence means so much to me

Much more than life itself.

And when I see those last few blooming daisies?

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.

It won’t be a stylish marriage.

I can’t afford a carriage,

But I’ll be switched if I’ll be hitched

On a bicycle built for two.

This morning the neighborhood robin showed up for his early morning worm.  Next thing I knew, I was marching along to:

There’s a lonely little robin

In a tree by my door

And he waits for his mate

Who returns never more

So remember, please remember

That I’m lonely, too.

Like the lonely little robin

I’m waiting for you.

Which sent me off on what Mrs. Medigovich, our senior English teacher, called a minor tangent.

I grew up in Bisbee, Arizona—a company town, a mining town:  What comes to mind there?  Tennessee Ernie Ford, of course:

You load sixteen tons and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go.

I owe my soul to the company store.

Phelps Dodge was the company, and yes, there was a company store.  Each summer in July, Phelps Dodge shut down operations for two weeks.  It was called … wait for it … Shut Down.  Because our father didn’t work for P.D., our family stayed home while almost everyone else left town.  During that time my older sisters made summer spending money by watering neighbors’ yards.  I was too young to do the watering, but I was old enough to tag along.  And it was on one of those watering sojourns that my older sister, Jay, taught me to sing There’s a Lonely Little Robin in harmony.  Thank you, Jay.

You see how stream of consciousness works?  It meanders.  Tennessee Ernie jumped right in there between the Lonely Robin verse and the Lonely Robin paragraph.

Bisbee is the high desert and there were precious few gardens.  I tried growing a garden once, and it was an epic failure.  That probably explains why I’ve so enjoyed our garden this summer.  One batch of lilies is over, but another is coming on.  The hydrangeas are faded ghosts of their former glory, but the dahlias are beautiful.

And so are the plants in Bill’s vegetable garden.  Between laps this morning we picked green beans and green peas to have for dinner tonight:

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.

Do you or I or anyone know

How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?

But picking the green peas and shelling one to eat on the spot reminded me of sitting on the back porch of my grandparents’ home in Summit, South Dakota, shelling peas with Grandma Anderson.  That visit was the last one before she became too ill to cook.

Yes, Dean Martin,

Sweet, sweet the memories you gave me.

You can’t beat the memories you gave me.

Memories really are made of this.

And if I didn’t succeed in inserting at least one of those tunes in your subconscious today, I’m not doing my job.

Misery loves company.