Summer is on its way out. In this listener essay, Diane Kavanaugh-Black writes about a vital companion on her childhood summer journeys, and a relationship that lasted twenty-five years.
THE VAN
In my family growing up, there was me, Mom and Dad, Vera, Mae and Alex. And The Van.
A turquoise 1964 Dodge A-100 cab-over-engine truck—the 49th off the assembly line, purchased by my parents eleven months before I was born. Mom called it “Bessie” until the van’s age and appearance earned it the nickname “Trusty Rusty.”
"Almighty God created the races… and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
These were the very words used by a judge in Virginia in 1965 to defend the US state's segregation laws that prohibited interracial unions.
In the elegant beach town of San Sebastian, I found myself with a warm late spring afternoon free to take in the city by foot. It was the last Saturday of May and the whole city was alive. It’s as if all one hundred and eighty thousand residents were in the streets dancing, singing and watching dancers and singers. The beaches were packed, one with fotballers and bathers, the other with surfers and kite boarders, and both had pet dogs running wild with the children on the sand.
