16 Comments
Oct 6Liked by Deirdre Lewis

Vivid!

I can picture that six year old girl, hands in pockets. ‘I loved her because she reminded me of what it’s like to decide to do one simple thing that, even if you’re just a tiny person, makes you large.’ Brilliant.

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Ice cream melts. Three scoops-plus one more tucked inside a sugar cone. You had to conquer the mountain lick the Everest peaks and many times the ice would slip. Down on your lap. You picked it up with your hands and tried to stuff the scoops back into the cone. What memories rise from the parlors packed with panting tongues on a hot summer day. Only one of your snaps offered with relatives cozy New Orleans etouffle Cajun style delight. Hot down summers in the city. Your writing is a treat as I dip toes in the Mississippi mud trying to remember what ever happened to my catfish. That’s the next story.

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author

Ha! Yes, that’s the next story.

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Fantastic. As ever. I can just see the little one—hands in pocket, making herself large.

I love the sparseness of your descriptions, exactly enough to show us precisely each snap.

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author

Thank you, Holly. ❤️❤️

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Oct 6Liked by Deirdre Lewis

Brilliant Dierdre. Your observations are ticklish, if that’s a thing, because they tickle me.

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Uncle Larry now deserves a special place in the pantheon of real-and-remembered personages who appear briefly to grace your pages... but remain indelibly in the minds and memories of those (lucky) people who get to read the aforementioned pages.

Short version: I love both his story and the other ones within this post.

They also made me remember, in the early 1960's, walking for what seemed like forever but was probably closer to 10 or 12 or 15 minutes, in the company of my older sister, from our suburban Pasadena house to the Ice Cream store downtown, where single-scoop sugar cones actually once cost 12 cents, which was an impossibly large sum that seemed difficult to come by. Jamoca almond fudge was one of the favorites of my younger self, but no matter what flavors each of us had chosen, the cones were always eaten, every last crumb and drop thereof, on the walk back home, which never seemed quite as long.

Thank you, again, for these Snaps which, like some small turtles, have their own (and wonderful) ways of continuing to snap, after you thought they'd finished.

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author

Well that beautiful comment was a snap! Thank you.

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Damn, you're a great writer, Diedre!

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author

Thank you!

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Some people sure know how to take a kid’s fun out of ice cream. Luckily, some kids know how to do one thing that makes them large.

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Oh snap. You did it again. 🍦

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I love how this moves.

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Oct 7Liked by Deirdre Lewis

That little one, with her hands in pockets, that was me, not because I was cool or anything, I just always had to hide grubby fingernails from public view… still do!

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I am new here (thanks to Marc Typo) and I am enthralled. 🙏

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author

Thank you!

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