Holiday Spam

From: McClurkin Holston
Subject: quash sketching

Hei,

V I A GG RK LA

Click here
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Same age and both children. At other times she emphasis.
he was not far wrong in saying that were all but dead with
sorrow. On his knees the really, dorise! He cried, advancing
towards her. Over mexico. They returned, converted also.
but recognizes her first. A few moments before, he 'i have
told the truth. To everyone i have told and an old woman
were sitting side by side on.

~ ~ ~

Patriotic Pangs

Until I was 18, I only missed the North Carolina 4th of July Festival one time. My grandmother lived in Southport, and the 4th of July was the only sure time all of my mom's side of the family got together. There was a parade, which went kind of lame in later years, but before I hit ten, it was the coolest thing on four wheels, four legs, or two clown feet. There were fire engines, horses, Shriners, cartoon characters, Ghostbusters who shot silly string, beauty queens in convertibles who threw candy to us, crepe paper floats, marching bands. After the parade, we went to the Arts and Crafts festival. I always wanted a wire head band with curly ribbon coming off the back. I got one every few years. And the food. Brats Bratwurst* , gyros, funnel cakes, dippin' dots. Just thinking about it puts me into a food coma. And when it finally got dark, there were fireworks over the river. We'd sit on the lawns of the old sea captains houses with their Widow's Walks and haunted basements. Then we'd walk back to my grandmother's house.

There is an indescribable feeling of the Fourth of July for me. It's like Christmas, only better because it lacks that ribbon of childhood greed urgency to open gifts. It meant getting to eat Cookie Crisp and drink Coke. It meant playing in the playhouse with my cousin Daniel and my brother. It meant playing hide-and-seek at dusk with my older cousins who would hide in the graveyard behind my grandma's house or up pine trees in the back yard. I still can't imagine climbing one of them. They were wider than telephone poles, but just as branchless. I really miss them these days. It's been several years since we've all been together in one place.

My grandmother died almost five years ago. I have some lingering guilt about it all. She was in the hospital, and I was driving up to see her. A lot of my family had gone up earlier, but I stayed later to do something with a boyfriend at the time. I just didn't think she'd die while I was driving. My gran had only died the week before. There was no way Grandma was going to go too. But she did, twenty minutes before I got there. I've only been back to Southport once since her funeral. I did watch A Walk to Remember, though. With friends, under duress, a little. I knew it had been filmed in Southport, so a part of me wanted to watch it regardless of a terminal Mandy Moore. And uh, she dies in the same hospital as my grandma.

I looked into booking a hotel for next year's festival. They're all booked. Nothing! No rooms! I knew the festival was getting big and that when I was a kid you'd have to book a room in January, but a year in advance? That's ridiculous! Maybe that's just an online thing. Maybe if you call the hotel. I'll have to see.

*I was looking this over and when I saw "Brats," I thought Bratz, the dolls. As tasty as that sounds, and as satisfying as their destruction would be, I'm afraid I'd get salmonella poisoning or herpes from eating a Bratz doll.