ABC's Wrap-Up

V = VOICE  

A frequent refrain from my mother was, "Sally, you don't know how your voice carries!"  

Yes....I do......  

When my brothers were outside and it was time for supper, she would appoint me to be the human dinner bell.  She'd call me in and ask me to let my brothers know it was time for supper. I never thought she expected me to walk up to them and invite them to table. Insted, I would open my mouth and yell, "SUPPER! SUPPER'S READY!"  Supper is a great word to shout out.  One can expel every bit of air in the lungs in the yelling of the word with its two syllables and hard consonants.  Supper.  Try yelling it out sometime and see what happens and who answers or even better who comes to the table.

W = WATERMELON  Another staple of summer.  The watermelon is so much a part of the season we often have our first one on Memorial Day picnics, the "official" start of summer.       

Are there still any kids who have not been told that if you swallow a watermelon seed that a watermelon will grow in your belly?  

I'm a big fan of watermelon; I lke the fruit, I like the flavoring added to hard candy (Jolly Rancher, anyone) and to water and beverages of a more adult variety. 

X = X-RAY  As we once again....sigh....return to wearing masks in stores and indoors (I confess I never stopped so doing) one of the moments that makes me sad is when I see a little kid, a three or four year old, wearing a mask; they are so innocent and I wonder the impact upon them of these days through which we are living. 

The same feeling of sadness occurs whenever in the midst of summer I see a kid with a cast on an arm or a leg. 

In these moments I trust even more on the resilience of children and how they are gifted with both a literal bounce and a wellspring of inner bounce to which they keep coming back and getting up and going forward. 

Y = YELLOW   I have never had done, nor do I think it is soon to happen, my color pallette.  Am I an autumn?  A summer?  What color is my color that when I wear it I own it?  Don't know.  Someone, someday may let me know.  When that happens I hope I already have the wardrobe for it. 

If there is a color for the season of summer my vote goes to yellow --- the golden sun, the jerseys of the 1979 Pirates, a canary melon.....

Z = ZUCCHINI   Be it a dry summer, a rainy summer, an extra-hot summer...whatever the weather the zucchini always seems to thrive.  There is an abundance of zucchini, they fill the stores, the farmer's martkets and our own gardens. There are so many zucchini that we freely and easily give them away....to everyone.

Thankfully,  I like zucchini. I am even more grateful that my mother was an incredible cook and made wondrously creative  dishes with the vegetable.  She pickled it, fried it, made a cake with it, cookies, used it as the noodles in lasagne....I swear if she would have been agreeable to fermentation, we would also have drunk it.