Journey, Destination, Mystery, Discovery

The Froth of July always was one of my favorite holidays. Yes, I know it's misspelled, but I wrote it that way on a paper when I was in grade school, and it stuck with me ever after. I had a friend in school named Brian. People used to misspell his name as Brain, and that's what he always has been to me, even though he threatened to kill me the next time I called him that. He still hasn't after sixty years, so I think I'm probably safe. I suppose it says more about me than it does about him.

Getting back to the Froth, I always loved fireworks and firecrackers. Firecrackers have been illegal in Minnesota for more than seventy-five years. They were always forbidden fruit for me. I once spent my whole 50c allowance for one from a neighborhood sharpster. Bang, and the allowance was gone. The jerk had the nerve to pull the same scam a week later. Luckily, this time I had already spent the money before he found me.

Self-esteem meeting tonight.
Use back door.

 

- 6 word story contest entry at FanStory.com

What's your earliest memory? Mine is the smell of the cabin at Cedar Lake, near Annandale. It was a musty odor, but heady. Like damp wood that never quite dried out. I have pictures of myself in a baby buggy with the lake shimmering in the background, or I'm crawling on the ground among the violets and clover. It was a real Eden. Where others had to drive hundreds of miles to northern Minnesota to find such a place, ours was just a little more than an hour away from home. Unfortunately, like all Edens, it had a serpent. More about that later.

I've mentioned in other writing that travel always seems to involve an adventure for me. I also mentioned that I am a retiree from the US Navy Reserves. In my twenty-one years, I spent thirty-six weeks on annual training. In 1993, I spent my two weeks in Hawaii. Terrible place to do my stint. Even worse, I had a room at the Hale Koa Military Hotel on Waikiki Beach and had a rental car.

What I was doing on active duty isn't a matter of public record. In fact, we had a saying in my unit, 'if I told you what I was doing there, I'd have to kill you.' Well, not exactly, but we had to pass through several checkpoints, including the possibility of a cavity search, and numerous key pad locks to get to our workspace. We spent evenings swimming, hiking and eating moonfish and mahi-mahi.