A Perfect Day (June 30)

“On Friday afternoon, Grandpa was already sitting in the veranda when I reached the top of the steps. He had arrived from the city while I was out fishing. In one hand he held a bottle of Old Vienna. An expertly slanted glass was in the other. Everything looked right, but he shot me a weary smile.

‘You know, Robbie, they always pour best with the cap off.’

“He reached for the opener on the table beside him. His first sip came straight from the bottle. Then he tipped most of the rest into his glass and sank back with an enraptured sigh.

‘What a day…What a week!’”  (Providence Point, p. 122)

At moments like this Granny seemed to intuit that it would be best to leave the two of us alone. She fully expected me to visit the kitchen for a glass of ginger ale but had no wish to be present when I went back to cadge a top-up of lager from Grandpa. She and he were British enough to view a clandestine draft of shandy as a milestone on the way to adulthood, but my parents certainly were not. And she preferred to maintain plausible deniability.

Such little conspiracies were precious. Thinking back, they earned a special place among Providence Point memories. Very likely you, too, have such recollections. If so, by all means share one as a Comment. And dip into Providence Point to find a wellspring of additional examples.

(Illustration generated by AI)