By the time I made it to the coffee machine this morning, I was already channeling Nat King Cole:<\/p>\n
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.<\/em><\/p>\n Those days of sodas and pretzels and beer.<\/em><\/p>\n Then, with my coffee in hand, I went outside to walk.\u00a0 For me, those daily morning walks are exercises in stream of consciousness mostly set to music.\u00a0 I walk past the blooming lavender bushes with their industrious black bees and I hear Gordon Lightfoot:<\/p>\n Oh, sweet Lavender, I must be with you constantly.<\/em><\/p>\n Your presence means so much to me<\/em><\/p>\n Much more than life itself.<\/em><\/p>\n And when I see those last few blooming daisies?<\/p>\n Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m half crazy, all for the love of you.<\/em><\/p>\n It won\u2019t be a stylish marriage.<\/em><\/p>\n I can\u2019t afford a carriage,<\/em><\/p>\n But I\u2019ll be switched if I\u2019ll be hitched<\/em><\/p>\n On a bicycle built for two.<\/em><\/p>\n This morning the neighborhood robin showed up for his early morning worm.\u00a0 Next thing I knew, I was marching along to:<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lonely little robin<\/em><\/p>\n In a tree by my door<\/em><\/p>\n And he waits for his mate<\/em><\/p>\n Who returns never more<\/em><\/p>\n So remember, please remember<\/em><\/p>\n That I\u2019m lonely, too.<\/em><\/p>\n Like the lonely little robin<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m waiting for you.<\/em><\/p>\n Which sent me off on what Mrs. Medigovich, our senior English teacher, called a minor tangent.<\/p>\n I grew up in Bisbee, Arizona\u2014a company town, a mining town:\u00a0 What comes to mind there?\u00a0 Tennessee Ernie Ford, of course:<\/p>\n You load sixteen tons and what do you get?<\/em><\/p>\n Another day older and deeper in debt.<\/em><\/p>\n St. Peter don\u2019t you call me \u2018cause I can\u2019t go.<\/em><\/p>\n I owe my soul to the company store.<\/em><\/p>\n Phelps Dodge was the company, and yes, there was a company store.\u00a0 Each summer in July, Phelps Dodge shut down operations for two weeks.\u00a0 It was called \u2026 wait for it \u2026 Shut Down.\u00a0 Because our father didn\u2019t work for P.D., our family stayed home while almost everyone else left town.\u00a0 During that time my older sisters made summer spending money by watering neighbors\u2019 yards.\u00a0 I was too young to do the watering, but I was old enough to tag along.\u00a0 And it was on one of those watering sojourns that my older sister, Jay, taught me to sing There\u2019s a Lonely Little Robin in harmony.\u00a0 Thank you, Jay.<\/p>\n You see how stream of consciousness works?\u00a0 It meanders.\u00a0 Tennessee Ernie jumped right in there between the Lonely Robin verse and the Lonely Robin paragraph.<\/p>\n Bisbee is the high desert and there were precious few gardens.\u00a0 I tried growing a garden once, and it was an epic failure.\u00a0 That probably explains why I\u2019ve so enjoyed our garden this summer.\u00a0 One batch of lilies is over, but another is coming on.\u00a0 The hydrangeas are faded ghosts of their former glory, but the dahlias are beautiful.<\/p>\n And so are the plants in Bill\u2019s vegetable garden.\u00a0 Between laps this morning we picked green beans and green peas to have for dinner tonight:<\/p>\n Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.<\/em><\/p>\n Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.<\/em><\/p>\n Do you or I or anyone know<\/em><\/p>\n How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?<\/em><\/p>\n But picking the green peas and shelling one to eat on the spot reminded me of sitting on the back porch of my grandparents\u2019 home in Summit, South Dakota, shelling peas with Grandma Anderson.\u00a0 That visit was the last one before she became too ill to cook.<\/p>\n Yes, Dean Martin,<\/p>\n Sweet, sweet the memories you gave me.<\/em><\/p>\n You can\u2019t beat the memories you gave me.<\/em><\/p>\n Memories really are made of this.<\/p>\n And if I didn\u2019t succeed in inserting at least one of those tunes in your subconscious today, I\u2019m not doing my job.<\/p>\n Misery loves company.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0 For me, those daily morning walks are exercises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-ga","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1003,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}