Dick's Hideaway:

We were kids in Vermont in the 1950s, playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, running wild and free and happy as youngsters should be.

Stumps around the wood shed were perfect seats for us youngsters to sit around and catch our breaths when we needed a break from heroic adventures. 

Today I was awed by fast, furious spells of sunshine and buckets-of-rain passing by so fast that sun-heated evaporation of every last wave was doused by a new round of rain. 

A fat spider in his web above my barbeque slid down during an intermittent storm and collected a struggling tiny butterfly caught in his trap.

I was caught up in remembrances of sitting on the fire logs with my young friends in Vermont. I counted to 100. It was an enchanting moment. No one of us had ever done it before. Everyone appreciated the accomplishment. 

When September came, I was left behind. All my friends got to go to school. I was too young for first grade.

Early fall has always been a melancholy time for me. I remember hiking, alone, to sit on a hill, half a mile from the school, on warm and sunny afternoons, watching for my summer friends to come out and frolic at recess.