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The Ubiquitous White Van
As I sift through the hundreds of photos from our most recent trip, I can’t help but remember how often I mentally constructed a shot only to realize a white van sat inside the frame. Occasionally it’s grey, or less often, black, but a van is a van when it’s taking up space in front […]
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Junior High
The bus stop was around the corner, across a street, then down half the length of Broadview, a street that ran parallel to our street. It was the back street–the one that bordered the field with the storm drain. The field that we heard someday would become a freeway. I felt like I was in […]
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The television effect
One of the many new aspects of our life at the house on Elkelton was a color television. The Curtis Mathes set was Colonial in style and made of maple. It was a big box of a thing that sat on four decorative legs about six inches off the floor. To me, it resembled a […]
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The house on Elkelton
Whether I’ve wanted to or not, I’ve hung on to certain numbers of significance in my life. They roll off my tongue when I’m playing the memory one-upmanship game with someone: 4023, the phone number assigned to our family on the Navy base in Rota, Spain; 1056, the address of the house on Navarra Lane; […]
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Dog Days and Torpidity
August is two weeks away, but the dog days have already arrived. It was early June when I noticed them edging into my morning rituals: I forget to step outside for that first, fresh breath of damp air; organizing the kitchen and my thoughts for the day while waiting for my coffee is hit and […]
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Stay calm and carry on with new perspective
If our original plans had gone as expected, we would be on a direct flight home instead of waiting for a taxi outside of John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England. Our “vacation” had been extended a week to ensure that I was fit enough to be on an eleven hour flight. I remember the strong […]