This is what water, wind, and time and toil reveal
My mother is seventy-five today. She calls it being as old as three black bears. Last year, my father organized her a surprise party including friends and family from out of state; this year, I came over in the afternoon and gave her a reprint of Dorothy B. Hughes' Ride the Pink Horse (1946) and watched my father decorate almond cupcakes with whipped cream and fresh-made strawberry syrup, which neither my mother nor I would exactly have called a strawberry shortcake, but it was delicious. My brother and his family will come for the birthday observed at the end of the week. I finally got the chance to go for a walk with a camera for the first time in months. The camera then naturally died, but I got a harbinger of spring out of it first. The second photo comes courtesy of my father's phone.


My parents are now reminiscing about "Eve of Destruction." My father used to play it back-to-back with Phil Ochs' "Crucifixion." They are pretty sure it's still on vinyl downstairs.


My parents are now reminiscing about "Eve of Destruction." My father used to play it back-to-back with Phil Ochs' "Crucifixion." They are pretty sure it's still on vinyl downstairs.
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Thank you! The sun stages a good photoshoot.
Happy birthday to your mother
I'll tell her!
(I really do, every time people on the internet wish her well. Ditto the rest of my family.)
One of your names can now be "descended from bears." I think of the blessings that descent empowers you to give out. "May the presence of three bears support and defend you."
Being a child of three bears definitely sounds like a folktale.