I remember those summers up on the high-line ranch, where Pa would toil in the forge all day — his calloused hands blackened with soot — and Ma would busy herself with the housework. There was no counter top too clean, no floor too spotless, that wouldn’t pass her scrutiny unscathed. The kids — Suzie Mae, Tommy Joe, Joey Tom, Cousin Jeremiah, and polio-stricken Samuel — would, in their imaginations, sail around the skies as the fearful Android Pirates of Gerowas-7, or in the depths of the earth as members of the secret, telepathic Doolars, who, as well all know, dwell in lunar caves.
Those sunset would explode an entirely unknown spectrum of dazzling reds, oranges, and cyans. Those were days of fondness, days of wonder. Days that are no longer.
(Single tear rolls down cheek.)