Paul Scott Malone - Memorial Day and Other Stories
Here you can read online Paul Scott Malone - Memorial Day and Other Stories full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2000, publisher: Texas Christian University Press, genre: Home and family. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
Memorial Day and Other Stories: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Memorial Day and Other Stories" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
Paul Scott Malone: author's other books
Who wrote Memorial Day and Other Stories? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Memorial Day and Other Stories — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Memorial Day and Other Stories" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
United States--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction, Young men--United States--Fiction.
publication date
:
2000
lcc
:
PS3563.A43M46 2000eb
ddc
:
813/.54
subject
:
United States--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction, Young men--United States--Fiction.
Page iii
Memorial Day and Other Stories
Paul Scott Malone
Page iv
Copyright Paul Scott Malone, 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malone, Paul Scott. Memorial day and other stories / Paul Scott Malone. p. cm. ISBN 0-87565-218-2 (cloth :alk paper ISBN 0-87565-219-0 (pbk :alk. paper) 1. United StatesSocial life and customs20th centuryFiction. 2. Young menUnited StatesFiction. I. Title. PS3563.A432464 M46 2000 813'.54dc21 99-048286
Illustration and book design by Barbara M. Whitehead
Acknowledgements "Memorial Day, 1987: A Holiday Story" first appeared in the Southern Humanities Review; "When It's a House" in Black Warrior Review; "The Solitary Heart" in Blue Mesa Review; "Her Name Was Sheila Wells" in Hawaii Pacific Review; "Family Photos," Part I, in The Tucson Weekly.
Page v
For CK, again and always, and for Greg and for Danny Frank and for KJ Also for my mother Lillian Annie (1924-1996)
Page vii
Contents
Memorial Day, 1987: A Holiday Story
1
When It's a House
17
Naming Mansfield
31
The Solitary Heart
45
Her Name Was Sheila Wells
61
Family Photos
69
Dalrymple's Jackpot
111
Page 1
Memorial Day, 1987: A Holiday Story
1
Something's churning. Hardly slept last night and ever since I got up I've been racing around, looking for something, thinking thoughts so fast I've already burnt up a pack of Camels.
So now I'm in the attic scrounging for the flag. The Stars and Stripes. My Old Glory. Memorial Day is on Monday. Today is Saturday and we have no plans for the holiday but I'm as patriotic as the next guy and this year I want to show the flag. In a place called Flagstaff, Arizona, it ought to be a law.
Besides, we've had tragedy. As a nation, I mean: three dozen young sailors shot to pieces on an American warship in the Persian Gulf. A deadly mistake, says Brokaw, by the pilot of the Iraqi jet who fired the missiles; he thought he was killing Iranians. And on top of that an entire town in my home state of Texas was blown to Oz by a monster tornado. Children crushed. Grandmothers crip-
Page 2
pled. Twenty-nine dead. The TV shows incredible devastation, a flattened town on a flat desert prairie. In remembrance of fallen sailors, brave and true, and of dead Texans, old and new, I want to fly the flag.
I rip open a box marked MISC. On top are diplomas framed in wood and glass. Sarah's three are first, then my two worthless now. I dig into the box. Here we go: red and white stripes wrapped around the multi-jointed pole. Digging deeper I find the string from which the flag hangs and the flagpole holder that you fix to the wall. But a part is missing. I keep scrounging. The flag was a gift from my dad when I returned from the war in '71. He had served in the Pacific during W.W. II, came home with only a stump for a left arm. Still on every holiday he flew the flag, the one the Army gave my grandmother after the funeral of my Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill died in Korea the month I was born.
Down below Sarah's making a racket with the vacuum cleaner. I call down through the hole in the ceiling, ''Where'd we put the little knob?" and to my surprise the vacuum grinds to a stop. Some flagpoles have eagles; mine has a knob.
Sarah appears in the square hole. She's standing on the ladder. "What?" she snaps. I tell her what I'm searching for, and she offers up a look to match her tone. "A knob? I have no idea, William, I'd forgotten you even had a flag," she says and eases herself to the floor. Soon the vacuum starts up again.
We've been together for three years and two rent houses and I've never flown the flag in her presence. "That's not us," she says and she has a point. She's liberal; I'm agnostic. In all the years I've had it my flag has been outdoors only once Independence Day, 1980, for the hostages in Iran. I was married then to a woman named Marge but that was our last July 4th together. My daughter Joy who is twelve will call tomorrow as she does on the Sunday of every holiday weekend, and that's on my mind too.
I give up on the knob and crawl downstairs. I take my hammer and some nails from the junk drawer in the kitchen and head out front. I hammer up the metal flagpole holder. I assemble the pole,
Look at similar books to Memorial Day and Other Stories. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Discussion, reviews of the book Memorial Day and Other Stories and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.
![Scott Hahn [Inconnu(e)] - A Pocket Guide to St. Paul](/uploads/posts/book/134749/thumbs/scott-hahn-inconnu-e-a-pocket-guide-to-st-paul.jpg)
