Memoirous

Leading up to the Fourth of July weekend, Meridian Township here in Michigan just celebrated Meridian Days. To their credit they didn’t call it Founder’s Day or Pioneer Days or Patriot Day—which speaks to a sensibility of the multi-cultural make-up of the community. And, for good grief, the original people’s, even the name Okemos all speak to indigenous people. So an overlay of white supremacy wouldn’t have gone over well either. Simply Meridian Days. There was a Green Fair of which our bike shop participated, a Farmer’s Market, the obligatory food trucks, and in the evening: FIREWORKS!!! I love fireworks. Always have. One of my earliest memories (and, remember, this blog is about memories—collecting and archiving them as writers for future work or distilled into smaller flash pieces) is watching a fireworks show from a rooftop. Now I’m not sure where this was as even as a baby we lived on Hadley Ave. in Kettering, but nevertheless I remember Mom handing me over and all of us getti...

I went to Cathy’s Comps and Calls to cull our Hot Flash Friday prompts. There are several journals looking for flash having to do with the 4 th of July/Independence Day/Freedom. *Indiana Voice along with its sister radio station is accepting submissions for a special July issue! The theme is "Freedom"-what does it mean to you? The deadline is June 12, 2016. http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/p/blog-page_3914.html *24th Jun 200-word stories on the theme of Canada Day/US Independence Day. PAYING http://ironsoap.com/200-ccs/submissions/ So right now write— Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose . . . as the line goes from “Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson ) and sometimes that’s what summer is all about: long days, endless nights, lazy, hot days. But we also know that they will come to an end. School will start, the days will turn colder. We have this luxury right now. Warmth, sand, waves, barbeque pits, rollerblading, orange sunsets. Take ...

Where Foster Beach becomes Omaha Beach, where the shock and awe of Baghdad rocks Lakeshore Drive, where everyone in the city not only owns a gun but an arsenal of fireworks. Where the sky lights up and the buildings reverberate the chest-thumping KABOOM, where all night long m80s punctuate the city soundscape, and the pop-pop-pop of Blackcats compete with infrequent gunfire. Where Roman candles sizzle and burst setting off car alarms and where children chase falling sparks as if they’re fireflies. Where screamin’ meemies spin and whistle while overhead pinwheels of color blossom and dissolve into a shower of stars, once alive but now extinguished, leaving behind contrails of vapor. We shake the numbness from our ears. Where even the moon smolders behind a haze of red, green, and yellow and sulfur clouds hang suspended, making the apparitions below seem as if they are moving in slow motion. Where each concussive blast answers with yet another explosion, louder than the last. Where ...