Kim Stafford

SEVENTY-FOUR

/ janpriddyoregon / 9 Comments

My birthday is two months from next Friday. I will be 74, the age my grandmother and also her elder daughter died. When my mom turned 80, I teased her that she hadn’t expected to live that long. She laughed and said it was true.

Gary and I walked four miles this morning, meandering to Hug Point beach. That parking lot is still closed, which means the beach there has been pretty clean for most of the last year. What you see in my hand are shards of hard plastic from illegal fireworks last week. Yes, the pieces are every bit as sharp as they look. Had I trod on one in the sand, I’d have cut my foot. We mostly ignore the cardboard debris, but we pick up and dispose of the plastic remains and the nasty plugs of spent explosives. We have to be home for the 4th of July to ensure someone doesn’t burn our house down. This year was not the worst, but aerial explosions were right in front of our home and one tourist accidentally sent his rockets not up but across the sand. Fortunately, the tide was well out and nothing hit us, but do we enjoy the toxic and illegal display? Not so much.
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