Memoirous

Foster Ave Beach, 1968, Chicago. Lee Balterman. CALUMET 412 Age of Adolescence , 1959-64, Chicago. Joseph Sterling Age of Adolescence , 1959-64, Chicago. Joseph Sterling Age of Adolescence , 1959-64, Chicago. Joseph Sterling Morse Ave Beach, 1929, Chicago. CALUMET 412 Oak Street Beach, 1950, Chicago. CALUMET 412 Through looking at these photos--way too much time spent at the photoblog Calumet 412 --I've now been turned onto Joseph Sterling. Who is this guy? his pictures capture an era of James Dean wannabes, greasers, Bobby sockers, 1950s youth, the TEENAGER. Many of his photos have been collected into a book, The Age of Adolescence. Many of the photos are on display at the Stephen Daiter Gallery | 230 W. Superior, Fourth FLoor | Chicago IL 60654. Apparently Mr. Sterling went into commercial photography after getting his masters at the Art Institute of Chicago. He died in 2010 in Libertyville, IL. This from the Sun-Times obituary: Many of th...

I just discovered a wonderful new photoblog site: Calumet 412 Here are just a FEW I gleaned--go to Calumet 412 for more summer memories. Click on image to enlarge. There are so many photos at the website that can serve as prompts for you to WRITE YOUR OWN SUMMER FLASH! 53rd-57th Street Beaches, 1954, Chicago. Mildred Meade. University of Chicago Digital Archives. CALUMET 412 Chicago Park District Lifeguard, 1945, Chicago. CALUMET 412 U-Drive'em Motor Boats, 1947, Chicago River. CALUMET 412 U-Drive'em Motor Boats, 1947, Chicago River. CALUMET 412 Sights on the Sand, Wilson Bathing Beach, 1919, Chicago. CALUMET 412 Water skiing on the Chicago River, 1958, Chicago. CALUMET 412

Hey! Bob, remember that time we went out to a golf course in the middle of the night? Maybe it was out by Spring Valley. I don’t know what we were thinking. Often we got our “best” ideas after midnight after being up for twenty hours. You and I weren’t partiers—just arty. Or, our parents might have said we were harebrained because many of our schemes followed little to no logic. The night was damp with dew and our sneakers got soaked tromping over the hills. We left light footprints trailing us in the short grass. Stars stuck out like pinpricks against a backdrop of a black velvet sky. Did we talk? I don’t recall. We were friends, so we didn’t always need to. Or, you might have been telling me about an art piece you were working on. Or, maybe I was telling you a story, something I was writing. Hey Bob! Do you remember cresting a hill? At the top we lay down on our backs to look up at the stars. We listened to the crickets, to the sprinklers shushshushing on the putting gre...

Summer Special Get your summer flash on-- learn how to write at the beach, in the car, or wherever your summer plans take you. Flash is fun, easy, and convenient to your schedule--my e-book has dozens of exercises and prompts to get you writing flash memoir this summer--and now, FOR ONE WEEK ONLY--it is on sale at Amazon. Freeze Frame: How to Write Flash Memoir *for those without a Kindle you can download for free an e-book viewer for your laptop, etc

Get your summer flash on-- learn how to write at the beach, in the car, or wherever your summer plans take you. Flash is fun, easy, and convenient to your schedule--my e-book has dozens of exercises and prompts to get you writing flash memoir this summer--and now, FOR ONE WEEK ONLY--it is on sale at Amazon. Freeze Frame: How to Write Flash Memoir *for those without a Kindle you can download for free an e-book viewer for your laptop, etc  **TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FEEL FREE TO SHARE

Waving, one hand, over here! the other hand holding a cell phone We're here! Both arms above the head swaying, doing the cha-cha. Hey you! Hey you! We're here! The guy with the pennant rocking a flag, finally spying the rest of his group. We're here! One jumps up, two jump up, a trio hopping up and down. We're here! Then there is the walk, walking quickly across the populated grass, walking and shouting-- We're here! People meeting seemingly out of no where as if happenstance, hugging, ksssing, smiling, everyone talking at once. We're here! Starting tomorrow I will be running a special on Freeze Frame: How to Write Flash Memoir. So if you haven't downloaded my e-book stay tuned!

I wrote this because, well, summer feels like it is finally here. And, part of our summer ritual was going to a trailer downstate so far out in the country that starlight was as bright as street lamps. We really enjoyed this time away. But, now it is a memory because the property was sold and the contents of our little trailer scattered. There are others, I'm sure, that also have memories, recent or from childhood, of a summer home, camp cabin, or favorite get-away place. Enjoy. Arriving at Night It was always a lot of work just for a weekend and a long drive down, sometimes hitting traffic. Arriving in a vacuum of darkness, you fumble for keys, hidden, uncovering leaf debris, shaking off cobwebs, using the headlights of the car to see. You pause, apprehensive— What has happened to the contents since last there? Has the fridge gone out? Did a storm drive in rain? A musty odor arises from dank carpet, stale, unstirred air smelling slightly of desi...