Remembering a summer night

On summer nights we went out front and lit sparklers off glowing punk sticks jammed into buckets of sand the Tucker's Grandma prepared. It was hot and sticky and the cicadas were sawing away in unison from the elms that lined our streets then, before the Dutch Elm Disease killed them all.



We stayed up late and enjoyed the dry, cool breeze that finally blew across the porch and wrote our names in the dark with our sparkling wands. It was a little dangerous, playing with fire, and we burned our fingers sometimes, and our bare knees, but we didn't care. We were up late, no school, and our parents were up the street having a beer on the porch. We didn't have to be anywhere. I suppose some of the neighbors probably wished we would go in and be quiet but they never said anything.



It's snowing again and I'm smelling sweat and punk and dry grass. Memory is a wonderful thing. These are pictures of Walker carrying on the summer tradition last July.

My camera is again on the fritz. Walker and a friend used it last, and so I interrogated him. They were editing video they'd shot with it. Walker said he pressed the on button repeatedly to get it to beep in a funny rhythm while it was hooked up, synching with the computer. Now the camera thinks it's still hooked up to something and ignores all commands. It's off, in a box, to Canon, since it's under warranty, and I did not mention Walker's funny rhythm to the person at the store. We'll see. I really wanted to take some more pictures of the orchid budding.

Sigh.