Summer Abides
Summer Abides
Somewhere a lawn sprinkler spits a catchy rhythm to the accompaniment of a thousand cicadas. Yards are beginning to brown nicely beneath the unrelenting gaze of summer sun. The color of baked turkey. Labor Day is next week. One year without our sheepdog Gracie.
Far off music announces a carnival out in the middle of a hay field. A warm breeze of corn dogs and hamburgers, cotton candy, hot sun-baked hay raked into rows by a gang of boys riding on a huge wagon. Hot work and dry enough to choke a skeleton.
Soon the cicadas’ song will end, red-eyed monsters crawling beneath the baked earth to slumber, alarms set for seven years. Snug and safe from the stirring storms to the north. For now just a faint rustle, a foretelling of a long night coming. A murmured promise, a single snowflake touching your spine, to remind you that the season of death is closing.
But not quite yet. Snug Harbor, in its baked orange outland splendor, is still alive with color. The birds still swoop and sing, the crickets and cicadas continue their competition for best thousand member vocal group. Tomatoes and watermelons ripen, children ride their tricycles up and down the hot asphalt driveway with jet black feet, and sunflowers riot in gardens and along fence rows. Summer abides.
Click Here – S.Blue’s gallery of rioting sunflowers
After his frontal lobotomy, it wasn’t unusual for Henry to enthusiastically converse with or sing to his dinner. Everyone just grew to accept it as one of his many quirks. It became less endearing as the months wore on, though, and was just one more reason that the family finally had him committed to St. Hoolies’ Home For the Haywired. He enjoyed the ambulance ride, though.
Garrett liked to work out and keep fit. His wife liked it too, often commenting on his “lovely posterior”. But when his mother in law Doreen also began to notice, usually after a few Stroh’s, he decided to cut back a little on his gym time. Doreen later evolved into what is generally referred to today as a “
“Junior, put down that book and turn on the electric dog washer.”It’s unclear what this ad was actually about, but from its context we can make some inferences:1) Junior and his dog long for the sweet release that death will bring. “Dad, does she have to put cameras in all the rooms? Last night she told me not to splash while I was peeing!”
Tessa was one of those people who would wear a t-shirt that says, “I’m not suffering from mental illness. I’m enjoying the ride”. Even after hubby declared he was secretly attracted to their neighbor Garrett’s lovely ass, Tess seemed to take it in stride. A slug of Glenlivet and handful of Paxils generally brought on a pleasant buzz that was sufficient to drown out the police sirens and screams of pedestrians in front of the farmer’s market.
“I’ll have a Stroh’s and a pack of Camels. What about you, Duke?” “Well, I just had a couple of steaks and a loaf of Wonder Bread for breakfast, so just bring me a wire brush and a bottle of Mira-Lax.”
Elmer the curious duck (not pictured) was the real star of all the Hi Ho Cracker photo shoots.
Vampire teeth are to a 10 year old boy as a whip and fedora are to Indiana Jones. He can get by without, but he’s so much cooler with.
look back until you are well across the backyard. Breathless and not a little freaked out, you dive beneath the picnic table under the big magnolia tree. There’s an old piece of canvas draped over half of it to make a fort. Now you catch your breath and think. Hatching plans isn’t always easy, but you’ve got fangs, blood, and Scar Stuff. You’re going to scare somebody. The smell of dried canvas and dust fills your head.
