Golf, racing, and—ho-hum!

When I tell you the highlight of my day was driving six blocks to pick up fresh farm eggs from a neighbor, you’ll understand. My Burton family once again spent the day at the Schwab Invitational Golf Tournament. Jacob has been fishing in the backyard for weeks—practicing his casting. But tonight, golf has replaced fishing—he and a buddy are out there with golf clubs practicing swings.

Today was also the Indy 500, which means the Sunday TV program I sometimes glance at were pre-empted. The Indy always makes me a little sentimental. When my mom was in her dotage and my kids were in high school, she called them from her nursing home (archaic term but back then that’s what it was) to demand “Are you watching the Indy 500?” They chorused, “No, Grandmother,” and she snapped, “Well you should be. Your mother’s driving in it.” That was particularly ironic because I am a great driver in town, but I hate highway driving. Speed frightens me. RIP Gandmother.

I got yesterday’s mail today—that’s sometimes how things go around here—and it brought a packet of pictures from the son of good friends. His parents are now long gone, and he is—gulp—in his early sixties. What happened to the kid in footed pajamas that I remember? But the pictures were both a pleasure and a puzzle. There were pictures of my mom holding my two oldest on her lap in a relative’s living room in Kirksville—and yet I remember only being in Kirksville one time after I had children, and my parents weren’t there. Worrisome when memories won’t come clear.

Chris also sent pictures of me and his mom as “young women”—I’ve got to say she had a lot more pizzazz than I did. And there was poetry, written apparently by my brother’s first wife, now long out of our lives. Memories that bring a touch of sadness.

Tonight I made salmon burgers, and that brought another touch of nostalgia. In the summer of 2000 a remodel of my house had just been completed, and I introduced the contractor—Lewis Bundock, who still keeps house and hearth together for me—to my friends the Chaffees. He went to their house to make a bid on French doors and left with a contract to gut and redo their kitchen, build a wine cellar, and who knows what else. So all summer they were without a kitchen, and we ate on my front porch. Salmon burgers were a staple of our diet. I kind of forgot about them, mostly because the resident head of the household only lately came to appreciate salmon—and he wants a filet, thank you. He at first dismissed the idea of chopped salmon; then he said he’d eat it but not in a bun. But tonight they are often to a post-tournament dinner party, and I will dine alone. Sophie and I have had a long weekend of togetherness, and she is beginning to give me the fisheye.

Tomorrow is a holiday, but I am thankful the golf tournament is over and my back roads will once again be open. This is the last week of school, and once school’s out people sort of lose the idea of going to the zoo on the weekends, so that traffic jam will be less if not gone. Call me a boring creature of habit, but I am glad when things settle down to routine.