tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7320131690292314651.post1838316964115335587..comments2024-02-13T13:54:25.645+01:00Comments on Finding Clarity: Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 173Miranda Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11166000575283710451noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7320131690292314651.post-71721434272604103292020-11-15T10:38:19.047+01:002020-11-15T10:38:19.047+01:00A nice simple depiction of how the photo may have ...A nice simple depiction of how the photo may have been created. Nice work. Could almost taste the ice cream too. Miranda Katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11166000575283710451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7320131690292314651.post-51705742905446966332020-11-04T20:20:04.403+01:002020-11-04T20:20:04.403+01:00The Park Chair, by Joseph P. Garland, @JPGarlandAu...The Park Chair, by Joseph P. Garland, @JPGarlandAuthor, 426 words.<br /><br />There was something peculiar about it. I was on my first trip to the city. I must have been ten or eleven, and I recall exhausting my parents, insisting we go here and we go there. They were so much older than me then, though far younger than I am now, and they complained about needing a rest and we were all quite warm from the walking. There was a park up ahead, and I said we could stop there.<br /><br />It was such a magical place, and we eyed chairs randomly placed along the side. “Did I want an ice cream?” my mom said. There was a small man with a white apron dangling down his front beneath a red and white umbrella. The umbrella displayed a row of chocolate, and vanilla and strawberry cones dancing around it and it covered a small cart with large, spoked wheels in the middle and a pair of smaller ones up front. It was hot and we were overdressed, and the ice cream man stood in the shadow.<br /><br />When I said yes about the ice cream, my mother told my dad to get one for me. He was not happy being ordered about like that but he took it with his normal good grace when it came to her and up he went to the vendor. While we waited, I noticed that one of the park’s chairs had fallen through a grate above the subway station. It was a most peculiar thing, and I used my Brownie camera and snapped a photo. In those days, one was careful about photos since there were only so many pictures on a Kodak roll. <br /><br />I’d forgotten about that photo, and much about the trip, until I found it among a shoe box filled with pictures from when I grew up. I remembered that my dad brought me a strawberry ice cream cone that afternoon and a vanilla one for my mom and we sat for a goodly while until we collected ourselves and continued our sight-seeing. Just from the snapshot, I could almost taste that strawberry cone, biting off the tiniest bit from the bottom to drink the melting ice cream until the ice cream was all gone and I ate the cone and tried to clean my hands on the small napkin that encircled it and then with my mouth. My mom laughed, and pulled a handkerchief from her purse to try to clean me but my fingers would not be clean until I used the bathroom back at the hotel. <br />JoeGarlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16189299701530213539noreply@blogger.com