![]() ![]() I thought about Thad a lot over the coming years, wondering where he went to college and if he joined a fraternity. What she thought about while looking at the waves was a complete mystery, yet you could tell that these thoughts pleased her, and that she liked herself better while thinking them. It wasn't exactly what you'd call fishing, as she caught nothing and expressed neither hope nor disappointment in regard to her efforts. She couldn't swim, but enjoyed standing at the water's edge with a pole in her hand. Being away from home left him anxious and crabby, but our mother loved the ocean. I don't think our father would have cared whether he took a vacation or not. We ourselves were Beach People, Emerald Isle People, but that was mainly my mother's doing. There were those who bounced back and forth between one and the other, but most people tended to choose a landscape and stick to it. ![]() ![]() This teenage girl, her hair a beautiful mane, sipping Pepsi through a straw, one picture after another, on and on until the news, and whatever came on after the news.Īt some point in the mid to late 1960s, North Carolina began referring to itself as "Variety Vacationland." The words were stamped onto license plates, and a series of television commercials reminded us that, unlike certain of our neighbors, we had both the beach and the mountains. This stagecoach, for instance, coming round the bend with a cargo of gold. Were this the only image in the world, you'd be forced to give it your full attention, but fortunately there were others. He's a human being, but also he's a pig, surrounded by trash and gorging himself so that others may be denied. This was an old trick, designed to turn one's hatred inward, and while I was determined not to fall for it, it was hard to shake the mental picture snapped by her suggestion: here is a boy sitting on a bed, his mouth smeared with chocolate. The only alternative was to do as my mother had instructed and take a good look at myself. Wondering about the Tomkey family had made me feel generous, but now I would have to shift gears and find pleasure in hating them. We hadn't been friends, the Tomkeys and I, but still I had given them the gift of my curiosity. The shift wasn't gradual, but immediate, and it provoked an uncomfortable feeling of loss. For months I had protected and watched over these people, but now, with one stupid act, they had turned my pity into something hard and ugly. ![]()
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