The morning is perfect. The sun is squint your eyes bright. The blue sky is endless. The air is calm. It is already 59°, warmer than sweat shirt weather. My garden has color. The hyacinths, standing beside the dafs, are pink, purple and rose. One more is budded and soon to bloom. Today is spring on Cape Cod.
When I was a kid, I loved to sit with an encyclopedia Book, one of the red ones from the supermarket, and randomly open a page. I’d read wherever the book opened. I liked the end of the alphabet books, the X,Y,Z books with the rare words. I loved learning weird things.
When my father had his vacation, we didn’t go far. We sometimes went to Ogunquit, Maine and stayed at a cottage belonging to my father’s friend. It was tiny. There was a small kitchen and everywhere else had beds, including one in the kitchen high up and hidden by a sideway door of sorts. My father’s friend’s family stayed there at the same time, all six of them and six of us. There was a lagoon of sorts right by the houses. It was separated from the beach by dunes. My father swam at the beach. He body surfed. I never did. I didn’t like the cold water. I swam in the warmer lagoon water. That was about the only thing to do. I also used to go to the car to hide, to be by myself, to read.
My favorite vacations were the stay home vacations. We used to go to a lake which had a slide and a rope like zip line you held on to over the water. My mother packed great picnic lunches. My favorite was pepper and egg. We’d stay there all day.
We used to go to Museums. My favorite was the Peabody Museum at Harvard. It was filled with the most amazing exhibits. I remember the Polynesian outrigger hanging from the ceiling. I remember the ape heads in jars.
We went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I wasn’t all that interested in the paintings, but I loved the Egyptian rooms. I also liked the rooms with furniture.
When I travel, I love museums. In Ghana during part of training, we were close to Accra, and we had free weekends. I hitched to Accra at the first opportunity. My first stop was the national museum.
