Summer Starter

I have failed to update my blog for some days now. But, in the midst of finals, studying, and test anxieties, writer’s block overwhelmed me to the point sterility. No wise words have wormed from my tongue since. After leaving school and crashing for a solid fourteen hours of sleep, I have the pleasure of awaking to new insights and experiences to send me into a typewriter mood. For if coming home means anything, it means new topics for the blog.

Ghost Town
I passed a cemetery on the roadside and contemplated the families that visit the graves. A boy holds his mother’s hands naïve to the surrounding. The mother cries with a hand on the black marble. How will she tell her son about dad? A father bends in front of his father’s grave. Tracing his grandfather’s name along the cold stone, he remembers the man’s stature and respected presence in a room. He hopes to become such a man.
With each family, I thought about the flowers they brought. With a twist of the stem between the fingertips, family members laid to rest roses, marigolds, poinsettas, daisies, and tulips against the beautiful grey slabs. The reflective, upended head stones like brimming eyes of the dead to whisper thank you. I considered the affected family members and their deep love, so simple and so abundant. As the cemetery passed in the corner of my eye, I imagined a family leaving. The ground, soft and fertile, families would tiptoe back to their cars on the green grass. The wheels would kick up the dust, and a wisp of a ghost would linger in the air, and then the tiny specs would settle to the ground.

Army Fatigue
My grandfather retired from the Armed Forces some ten years ago. Since then he has enjoyed the serenity of backwoods Tennessee in a small town called Crossville. I visited them on my first day back from Atlanta. We hit the road to Destin, FL to stay at Fort Benning Recreational Center complete with hotel rooms and condominiums. It’s always refreshing to hear my grandpa’s voice. His voice reveals a roughness and wealth to all his life experiences. His stories awaken Vietnam for me, and I understand the hardships of his life and even the hardships that are yet to befall me. I speak back to him with respect and awe like a quiet child. But my greatest respect emerged, when we entered Eglin Air Force Base. The young guard checked my grandfather’s ID card and recognized his rank as an officer. The young man saluted him immediately, hand waving us through the gate. Two strangers with immediate respect for one another, serving a country that most assuredly is worth protecting.