not my favorite

My west coast brother informed me that today is Strawberries and Cream Day.  And that reminded me of a childhood incident that may explain why I'm not too fond of strawberries.  Or maybe I just don't like them.  My mother would have been great during this pandemic.  She was a teacher and during the summer months, kept us on a schedule, much as parents are being told to do with their children at home these days.  It wasn't a hard schedule.  Typical days involved some kind of chore in the morning, a little TV time (my little brother loved Captain Kangaroo), a rest after lunch and time to play outside in the afternoons.  One of those chores, not my favorite, was to get up in the cool of the morning and weed the strawberry patch.  My middle brother, two years younger than me, was not too fond of chores, especially ones that involved damp, dewy plants, muddy soil and sometimes spiders.  My mom would work along with us and he would take frequent trips into the house for dirnks of water and to check how much time was left til we could quit this job.  Finally, on this particular morning, he ran back to tell Mom that it was 8:00 and time to quit and have breakfast.  I was certainly willing to quit.  The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until after supper when Dad turned on the evening news at 7:00 and it wasn't on yet.  The news didn't come on until 7:20 and strangely the next couple of TV shows were also running late.  I don't remember if it was Mom or Dad who finally figured out that the kitchen clock was twenty minutes fast.  It didn't take them any time at all to figure out who had set the clock ahead.  I seem to remember more laughter than yelling and extra time in the strawberry patch for my brother.  I don't know why no one noticed all day that the clock had been set ahead but it was a different time.  We didn't have clocks on our computers (what's a computer?) or our phone (singular, on the wall), didn't wear fitbits or ever wrist watches, and generally just enjoyed our long summer days without worrying about what time it was.  A lot like my life these last couple of months.