July 13: Problems Connected with Life, Pioneer Days, Fireworks

A little bit about the big questions of life . . .

There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born?  Why do they die?  Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

Greetings, faithful disciples!

Well, again this is going to be a short post.  I am about to leave for a fireworks display in a neighboring town.  The town, you see, didn't really have huge Independence Day festivities, so, many years ago, some smart town leaders decided to create a holiday.  It's a week-long celebration called Pioneer Days.  It's full of class reunions, softball tournaments, pie socials, a parade, and, at the end of it all, fireworks.

I went to the parade this morning.  Now, it's time to blow up the heavens a little bit. 

Of course, life is always full of problems, as the passage above states.  Big questions, with not a whole lot of answers.  Humanity spends a lot of time and energy on solving problems or creating a whole crop of new ones.  At the moment, the world (or at least the country in which I live) seems hell-bent on the creation of problems (or messing up the solutions that have already been put in place). 

So, it seems pretty appropriate this evening to be celebrating a made-up holiday.  Frankly, I don't even know what pioneers we are supposed to be honoring.  Perhaps the founders of the town, although I don't think so.  Maybe the person who discovered iron ore in the area.  I think that was a thing many years ago. 

For me, I am going to celebrate being with my family members.  Buying a bratwurst.  Listening to the marching band.  Eating way too much kettle corn.  And then, as dusk is thick in the air, leaning back on the grass and enjoying a little fire in the sky.

If you want to join Saint Marty, he'll be down by the school, in front of the lake.  Look for the guy in the Bigfoot hat.

July 9: Night Risings, Race, Fireworks

Night risings and fallings filled my mind, free excursions carried out invisibly while the air swung up and back and the starlight rained.  By day I had watched water striders dimple and jerk over the deep bankside water slowed by the dam.  But I knew that sometimes a breath or call stirs the colony, and new forms emerge with wings.  They cluster at night on the surface of their home waters and then take to the air in a rush.  Migrating, they sail over meadows, under trees, cruising, veering towards a steady gleam in a flurry of glistening wings:  "phantom ships in the air."

Dillard watches with night risings and falling with her characteristic curiosity.  In Tinker Creek, she watches bugs walking on the water, witnesses hatches of colonies of winged insects.  They swarm and boil on the pond's surface, and then they launch like fireworks over meadows and trees.

Tonight, I will be attending a fireworks display one town down from me.  The community gathers by the lake, and there's music and food and pony rides.  Some bad garage bands, sometimes.  Of course, there are vendors hawking pizza and bratwurst and ice cream.  And, at dusk, the rockets start rising.

It's the end of a week-long celebration called Pioneer Days.  This morning, I ran the annual two-mile race organized by the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters.  I was slow, slow, slow, but I still managed to take first place in my age group.  Then, there was the parade.  A huge assembly of trucks and floats and ambulances and firetrucks.  Lots of Tootsie Rolls being tossed at kids.

It's been a good day, and it will be a relaxing night, sitting on blankets by the beach with family a friends, waiting for the sun to set.  And then glistening wings of light in the sky, to steal an image from Dillard.

Saint Marty's feet are sore, but his heart is full.