Show Me State Signs
Traveling, scrawling, but I thought you might like these signs from a road trip through Missouri. Wednesday, we will observe some mid-flight flirting. I watched the whole encounter with a … Continue reading
Rock With You
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
The bus is running and the doors hang open, but not a single passenger climbs in. At other gates people impatiently crowd…
Driving Questions
It’s hard to hear their actual conversation. There’s the kind, booming voice of the bus driver, the questioning tone of the young, blonde boy. The boy wears a Transformers t-shirt … Continue reading
Shake It Up
If we attempt to fix a logic for the travel souvenir, I believe the following generalization might hold: the souvenir reduces the grand, the magnificent, and the beautiful to the … Continue reading
Window Shopping
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
No need to rush to the airport, two business men opt to take a coffee in the lobby of their hotel, where…
Moving Day
Running boxes to a moving truck can be very therapeutic, and can remind one that reading isn’t always the lightest of hobbies. Nonetheless, I can’t quite part with my books, … Continue reading
Mugging
At brunch, the three young girls sit on the left of the table, and their mothers face them on the other side. The girls chat over their pancakes, modeling their … Continue reading
Seaside Sobbing
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
At the park, the family waits for their turn on a swing. The huge contraption has two benches that face each other…
Watch Your Step
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
Thank you Lord that I spotted the three little old ladies in their long skirts and head scarves recoiling in horror at…
Corner Pocket
It doesn’t seem fair to give too many details, since she didn’t know she’d be on the record. She challenged my friend to a game of pool, she challenged everyone … Continue reading
Slow and Steady
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
At the rest area in Sutherland, Nebraska, he exits the driver’s side of his old Ford truck, takes off his hat, and…
The Whatever Grandpa
Though there are dozens of food carts outside for the Midnight Sun Festival, she sits with Grandma and Grandpa in an air conditioned restaurant with tall tables. She gazes at … Continue reading
An Apple A Day
She’s been silently enjoying her lunch. Though she’s consuming soup she blows quietly to cool it, like whispering over a sleeping child, and she eats from a breadbowl, which makes … Continue reading
Pout
The little girl with a hot pink jacket runs the wrong way on the airport’s moving sidewalk. She’s on the phone. “Frozen and Superheroes, Save me! Grandpa’s trying to get … Continue reading
Inspire Curiosity
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
Men who sell simits–a bagel-pretzel coated in toasted sesame seeds–are almost as ubiquitous in Istanbul as ankle-breakable holes in the sidewalk. Since…
Car Dancing
The boy is a teenager, but also a boy. He sits in the passenger seat of a truck and dances in his spot. He sit-dances with the best of them, … Continue reading
Intractable Gestures
In those years his father held that a nation could change its way of life, its history, its technology, it’s art, literature and culture, but it would never have a … Continue reading
Neighborly
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
The eleven year old girl on the bus moves over to sit in front of her mother. This way she is now…
Thank You For Your Service
Originally posted on The Nice Thing About Strangers:
He ambled through the aisle of the convenience store. His hat read “Veteran: World War II.” I beamed at him, as I…
Learning to be Cool
The father wants to take a photograph of his daughter at the large airport window, in front of the airplane they will take to Vienna. He’s removed his shoes and … Continue reading
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