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from The Patience of Rivers
The business was always there. It grew over their family like a big tree, casting its shadow on everything they did. It was there when Nick Lauria and his sisters needed jobs during the summer of 1969, the summer of Woodstock and the moon landing and too many boys dead in Vietnam. It was there when Nicks mother confronted her husbands business partner and changed their lives forever. And it was there even when it was no longer there, when it had finally slipped from their grasp and landed in the hands of someone outside the family. |
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from Suburban Guerrillas The same summer the purple finches nested on the front porch, Ray and Marisse Vann started driving around town naked. It started over dinner one Friday evening. As they spoke of the small events of the dayRay had gotten a new graphics program for his computer, Marisse had lunched with TinaRay told Marisse of something unusual he had seen on his way to work. |
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"Dreaming the River"
The water ran black between the boats, and doilies of foam floated past as the teams backpaddled to stay behind Vern Lefevres outstretched arm. |
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"A Glimpse of the Moon" On the Wild Turkeys snowy television screen, Neil Armstrongs left foot touched the surface of the moon. Nick and the others at the bar raised their beers and cheered. And thats one dude who really knows how to get out of town, Darlene said. |
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![]() short fiction |
"King of the Straight and Narrow" Thursday afternoon and Ed Jacques had his big Mack running a straight seventy along the Mass Pike. The trailer was empty. He had just dropped a load of copier paper at General Electric in Albany, and now he was headed home. With the trailer empty, he could roll along no sweat, make the hills without downshifting. |
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![]() personal essay |
"Woodstock Site Notes: A Sense of One' s Place" Saturday, August 16, 1997 I ride my mountain bike to the Woodstock site. Its six miles from my house. A very hot day, but enjoyable ridingall back roads, winding through open farmland and cool woods. There is no traffic, and except for one sparse yard sale, no people stir in their lawns and homesteads. I have the rolling hills of western Sullivan County to myself. |
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![]() personal essay |
"Crossing the Millennia in the Upper Delaware Valley" We scrambled up the dark mountainside as best we could. I jittered the flashlight ahead so I could grab the next bare sapling, then swung the beam around so Elise could catch a rock outcrop with her boot. The ascent from the railroad tracks was steep, the night still. Cold, but not too cold. No moon, but a skyful of stars and the occasional light from a house across the river. We panted as we climbed. Our frozen breath hung in clouds. |
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© 2002 2015 Joseph Freda. Website design by Freda + Flaherty Creative. |