The other day I watched a flock of geese fly over head in their familiar V shape. Hmmm. Should I tell the joke? Ok. You know when you see a flock of geese flying in a V formation and the one side of the V is always longer? Do you know why that is? There are more geese on that side! Hardy har har!
Ok. Back to my blogpost and birds. I can remember, very vividly, playing in my back yard on Dowell Street, Slatington, in the early ’60s. I would often be amazed by the sheer number of everyday birds that would fly overhead, in a giant, seemingly never ending flock. You could literally count thirty seconds before it came to an end. You just don’t see that any more. Maybe it is there and I am too busy to be watching the sky. But I suspect they really aren’t there any more.
Another thing I miss is nuns. Oh, I know there are still nuns around. I probably passed several at Wegmans this morning. But I wouldn’t know it. They have lost their habits. As a child I can remember seeing nuns with full, dark blue habits and wimples (love that word). They would be shopping at the Acme or at the five and ten. They almost always seemed to travel in pairs. Sisters. I was always a little in awe. Of course, not being Catholic, I never had to face their wrath.
I miss long summer days with no responsibility in a world where fear didn’t rule our lives. We would sleep in, wake and have breakfast, and then head outdoors. No one worried about us. We had the run of the town and the creek and the fields. Be back when you hear the 5 o’clock bank chimes. Maybe the only admonition, from our parents, was to not swim in the slate quarries. We didn’t always listen. Good times. Good times.
Do you know what I don’t miss? Getting up to change the channel, or volume, on the TV. If you are going to make a case for why today is better than back in the day, that might be the place to start!
A Semi-retired Kind of Life 