The Board Meeting had come to an end. Bob started to stand up and knocked into the table, spilling his coffee over his notes. ''How embarrassing! I am getting so clumsy(笨拙的) in my old age. ''

Everyone had a good laugh, and soon we were all telling stories of our most embarrassing moments. It came around to Frank, who sat quietly listening to the others. Someone said, ''Come on, Frank. Tell us your most embarrassing moment. ''

Frank laughed and began to tell us of his childhood. ''I grew up in San Pedro. My Dad was a fisherman. He had his own boat, but it was hard making a living on the sea. He worked hard and would stay out until he caught enough to feed a big family. Not just enough for our family, but also for his Mom and Dad and the other kids that were still at home. ''

He looked at us and said, ''I wish you could have met my Dad. He was strong from pulling the nets and fighting the seas for his catch. When you got close to him, he smelled like the ocean. No matter how much my mother washed his clothes, they would still smell of the sea and of fish. ''

Frank's voice dropped a bit. ''When the weather was bad, he would drive me to school. He had this old truck that he used in his fishing business. That truck was older than he was. Half the time, he would slam to a stop and the old truck would belch(喷出) a cloud of smoke. He would pull right up in front, and it seemed like everybody would be standing around and watching. Then he would lean over and give me a goodbye kiss on the cheek and tell me to be a good boy. It was so embarrassing for me. Here, I was twelve years old. I was a big boy and my Dad would lean over and kiss me goodbye! ''

He paused and then went on, ''I remember the day I decided I was too old for a goodbye kiss. When we got to the school and came to a stop, he had his usual big smile. He started to lean toward me, but I put my hand up and said, 'No, Dad. ' ''

It was the first time I had ever talked to him that way, and he had this surprised look on his face.

Frank got a funny look on his face, and the tears began to well up in his eyes.

The coming of warm weather here in Maine calls for a seasonal ritual that, for me, puts an end to winter—fetching the wooden screen door.

Note that I wrote “wooden”. The aluminum models just won’t do it — they close too neatly and keep their perfect form for decades. In the 1960s, a time of imperfection, there was no perfect house, no perfect car, no perfect kids or parents. Why should a screen door be an exception?

I grew up with my siblings in a working-class neighborhood in New Jersey. When the warm weather arrived, my dad would pull out the wooden screen door and install it over the back door, which could then be left wide open, admitting a refreshing breeze (we had no air conditioning).

My father was a Mr. Fix-it, so keeping the screen door serviceable was one of his hobbies. Every few years he gave it a fresh coat of paint and fixed it a bit. I clearly remember him putting the last screw in the last hinge, and swinging the door shut with a “crack”!

A good, wooden screen door, although it was not beautiful, had an invaluable function in the age of the stay-at-home mom: It reminded her of the coming and going of the kids. My siblings, and my friends ran in and out of the house, tearing the screen door open and letting it shut with a bang behind us. A hundred times a day. It was all good, and my mom never complained about the noise, because that was the purpose of a wooden screen door — to slam shut and thus announce that her children were within earshot.

Several years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I went shopping for a wooden screen door. I was disappointed in the choices available. They looked a bit too solid, too well made. But I found one online, and within a week it was delivered to my doorstep.

The firm had sent me one with the wrong dimensions, so I asked my carpenter to make the necessary adjustments.

He went about his work again and a short while later the task was done.

When school was over, the day was fading and it started to drizzle(毛毛雨). I stood at the school gate, with a loaded backpack on my shoulders. It was Friday again: a weekend of joy with unlimited sleeping hours and dinner courses specially made to my taste, a weekend at home. I waved goodbye to my friends as they jumped into their fathers’ warm and comfortable cars. Curiously, this gave rise to a disturbing feeling in me. It was not exactly what they called jealousy, but something like dismay(沮丧). I knew all I could expect was an old bike Mom would ride along on, with the badly-oiled chain creaking(嘎吱作响) against the wheel to announce her arrival.

Every Friday when Mom came to pick me up for the weekend, it was a moment full of great expectation and great unease. I always felt my face burning as we rode our way in and out of the numerous cars and saw my friends’ faces sticking out of the car windows. It was like stepping into a ballroom with beautifully dressed ladies and finding yourself in a smelly T-shirt.

To tell you the truth, Mom is quite a headache once in a while. She just looks a homely middle-aged housewife. Being a practitioner of DIY, she knits most of my sweaters, chiefly in old styles. Whenever caught by some curious classmates asking what brand my sweaters are, I’d force a smile and reply in a half joking manner: homemade.

I couldn’t remember when I started to find her such an embarrassment. As a little boy, I relied on her so much. She had been working at home, cooking in the kitchen, knitting by the lamp or riding across town to buy me a book I badly needed. It had always been much fun riding with mom. But just now there seemed to be something standing between us, something that made her so strange to me and me to her.

Today she showed up in a raincoat.

Mom tried to cover me with the back of the raincoat again as a storm set in.

It was somewhere between spring and summer, and my mom and I were driving through the countryside. Back then, I was 13 years old, and always felt unhappy with Mom. But I didn’t know that this trip was going to be a special one.

A pot of flowers sat in the back seat, whose heavenly fragrance(香味)filled the car. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, my mom stopped the car. “What are you doing?” I shouted, fearing that the car had broken down and we’d be trapped there, so far from home. But that wasn’t the case. My mom jumped out of the car, grabbing(抓)the flowers from the back seat. “It’ll just be a minute,” she called back through the open windows.

I impatiently looked at the side of the road before finding a little sign showing that it was a nursing home. I looked back to the building, a little annoyed, as my mom reappeared ——empty- handed.

Before she started the car, curiosity drove me to ask, “Do you know someone there?” She shook her head. “Then what did you do with the flowers?” She smiled slightly, “I gave them to the receptionist (前台接待员).” “What?” She laughed at my confusion. “I told the receptionist to give the flowers to whoever needed them, especially those who haven’t gotten any in a while.”

I kept silent for a moment. Not long after we continued our driving, I spoke again, “Did you leave your name?” To this, she answered instantly, “No. Leaving flowers there for someone who will appreciate them makes me feel good, which is enough of a thank for me.”

Suddenly, still thinking about Mom’s deeds, I heard something burst loudly. It was our car that broke down! Nothing could be worse, because neither my mom nor I understood how to repair it, and we didn’t know where the garage was. It also seemed impossible to wait for any passer-by, since we had seen so few people along the way.

We were worrying about what could be done.

As we drove along, a flower shop came into sight on the road.