7.04.2014

On Patriotism



Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 8:23am.

Here's all you have to do.  Go to the basement and see how it makes you feel.

Thursday, July 3, 2014, 1:47pm.

It felt like I wanted to get the basement cleaned up, so I did that instead of write, all day yesterday which was okay because the internet was down and it was raining.  But today, the sun is out so I can only stand the basement long enough to carry the donations out to the car even though there's more to do.  Then I make myself coffee and sit on the porch.

Three boys float in discussing plans to bike to Sunset Beach.  Counter plans are proposed and rejected. One whines about how he doesn't want to go swimming, but by the time they're all leaving, he's changed his mind.

Frank makes his slow trek back from Jacob's.

The girls are in the backyard setting up a clubhouse under the canoe.  

Tonight we will go to Memorial Park to see fireworks.

Tomorrow, I'd like to post something about patriotism.  But so far, all I've come up with is this:

My dad used to hang the flag every fourth of July, a little ritual that was curious enough that we kids gathered around.  Dad would unroll it, there on the front porch and stick the pole in the stand.  And at the end of the day he’d take it down and roll it up and prop it in the corner of the basement where it sat until the next July Fourth.

I don’t know how I know that my dad hung the flag on September 11, 2001.  I couldn’t have witnessed it because I was bunkered down in our Tuscon apartment with our two and a half month old baby.  I remember talking to my brother on the phone and him saying there were some jerks in his department who actually went to work.  I didn’t tell him my husband had too.  

At some point I felt I had to get away from the news.  It was so bright out, so blue.  I walked across the street to the Time Market where Tree, the giant hippie with patchwork bell bottoms and a musical bike was ranting about how we deserve it.  I was stunned.  And now I remember.  I cried on the phone when my mom told me my dad hung the flag that morning.

































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