Category Archives: youth

Danger Mr. Smith

October 31, 2023 – 8:38 am

The 1960s Space Race between the USSR and USA exterminated young boys’ worship of westerns. Cowboy hats, vests, guns, and holsters were retired to the closet next to toy boats and teddy bears. I pleaded with my parents for an astronaut costume for Halloween and my father answered my dream with a gleaming space suit […]

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In Honor of Lassitude

September 1, 2023 – 1:46 pm

Written Sept. 1, 2013 Back in 2008 the BBC broadcast a story about a Bogota Museum honoring laziness with a week-long exhibition dedicated to a deeper understanding of lethargy. At last lassitude has achieved respect by intellectuals who too often have downplayed its importance to human existence. Throughout the 80s and 90s my Sundays were […]

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Cumberland County Kingdom

August 24, 2023 – 3:14 am

Written July 1, 2021 From the Kezar Pond to Saco Bay. Old Orchard Beach to Bailey’s Island. The land of my youth The summer camp on Watchic Pond Built by my grandfather. An orphan became a frontline surgeon in WWI France. A retreat from the horrors to Maine With a nurse, my grandmother. A noble […]

By Peter | Also posted in maine, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Chaney – Sebago Lake – July 1960

August 24, 2023 – 1:10 am

Written July 1, 2021 My best friends as a child were my older brother and Chaney We lived in Falmouth Foresides, Maine. We did everything together. School, hockey, eating stolen strawberries from the nearby farm, hang at the docks at the end of our street, and swim at Sebago Lake. My family moved to the […]

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BLESS ME FATHER by Peter Nolan Smith

August 23, 2023 – 8:38 am

Written February 10, 2022 My First Holy Communion and Confirmation of Faith to the Catholic Church took place at a church in Maine in 1960. My mother dressed me in white to symbolize the purity of my soul, although she had me wear a red jacket with a black velvet lapel. I had a fight […]

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