MOVING IMAGES, ’MOKE DACKS

STANLEY DIAMOND: A culture is its refuse.

Big Daddy ’moke dacks.

That’s what I called the smoke stacks signaling to me on the road as we

neared Pease Air Force Base where then dad worked on airplanes. Now,

some Superfund site.

We’d pass the ’moke dacks on the way to the theater, too.

Movies before which we’d drink soda & crush cans, fingertips yellow (with salt). Then, mass-cultured, we’d drive back, practically nuclear.

Yep! We were a family in reel time.

We drove on highways talking movies, those

cold-boxed plays of limn & might.