Summer Under the Lily Moon
Independence Day eve.
Memories. American memories. A small town, like any small town. You might call it Small Town, U.S.A. Kids played outside until 9:00 pm, hide and seek and kick the can, using neighbor’s yards as hiding places. Lightning bugs blinked off and on. Bats swooped down after July mosquitoes.
The labor unions fought for wages, benefits and a whole town, this Small Town, went out on strike. And won. Workers had houses, boats, vacations. Their kids went to college. Health insurance came with the job.
This small town had a daily newspaper. Each afternoon at 3:30 pm after school let out paper boys gathered in a small wooden shack attached to the back of the press room, green paper bags in hand. The circulation manager would count copies and hand them out. Some paper boys would stay a bit, folding the papers into tiny, compact squares with a folded down corner. They flew 20, 30 feet with astonishing accuracy, curve ball accuracy.
One newspaper boy bought a transistor radio, clipped it to his belt, stuck the ear piece in and listened to baseball games as he walked down Monroe Street, flipping the small squares onto porches from the sidewalk.
This was a time, maybe about the year, that the Spunik satellite went up, pinging its bright metallic way across the sky. Before that there were no human objects in space.
Kids collected pop bottles from trash cans, pulling Red Flyer wagons, loading them up. At Cox’s grocery store a nickel a bottle, ten cents for some. A lot of money. Buy some marbles. Firecrackers. Ice cream. Essentials for hot summer days.
Pot bellied veterans would carry the colors in this small town’s parades, their pink flesh peeking through the no longer form fitting white uniforms. Tanks from the local armory left tracks in the hot asphalt. An Independence Day parade. Marching bands, baton twirlers. A queen of something doing the wave.
Folks lined up along the street, the folks whose husbands had gone on strike. Who received the copies of the newspaper. Folks whose kids played outside until therr was no time left and mothers called from their doorsteps. They stood there in the heat and watched the parade. A big event for a small town.
Far over ahead, a ping.