I had fallen asleep in my chair in the sitting room in front of the television. I awoke with a start and looked around. I was fully dressed. My teeth and hearing aids were still in place. It was very dark outside. I had been dreaming.

The TV was obediently spewing out a story on wildlife in Australia. The clock said a little before seven. Was that A. M. or P. M.? It was Thursday afternoon when I dozed off. Could I have slept all night in my chair? I surfed several channels before I hit on the ABC Evening News. What a relief. It was P. M. Have you ever done that? Wake up and not know what part of the day it is? I felt so silly.

I can hardly wait until Daylight Savings Time kicks in. I am so tired of winter. But why should it matter? I don't have to keep the fire going in the fireplace to heat our cabin anymore. The heat pump does that. I don't have to walk down to the mailbox every day. Anne does that. I don't even go grocery shopping on Wednesdays. Anne just asks me if there is anything special I want before she heads out on Wednesdays and Sunday morning while I am at church. Even my HP ink cartridges are delivered by UPS. I haven't been in their Knoxville store in ages.

My how times have changed. It used to be my asking my husband what he would like for supper. Now Anne asks me that question. I am so grateful to be under her care. The one area she can't enter is my memories. Being 91, I have the old folks gift of remembering long ago events.

My dream was about when we lived on Lee Road. Rickey, my only child at the time, was about seven years old. He had fallen in love with the Everley Brothers' song, “Wake Up little Susie.” Rick would sing snippets of it as he played around the yard. When he got his first dog, a blonde cocker spaniel, he named her “Little Susie.” We wrote her name on the dog house my husband built for her. When that song plays on TV, like it had earlier in the day, I think of those times.

There are many differences between then and now. We eat almost the same things winter and summer. Imagine buying fresh strawberries in the dead of winter. What about fresh table grapes? There was no frozen food when I was growing up. There were A & P Stores everywhere. Those are gone. The hardware store was more important than the grocers. Appliance stores? What appliances? The only appliance we had was that old cook stove in the kitchen. It would be years before mother had her first electric wringer washer. Electricity? In my early years, the windmill in the back yard generated electricity, when the wind blew, that is.

There will come a time for you in the future when you sit around in your recliner and muse about what used to be. You will enjoy the mental trip back into yesteryear. I know, I do. But the youngsters in your family will look at you with a smile on their faces, thinking “It couldn't really have been like that.” Yes, it was.