Sky Watching, the First of June (youngsters:science fiction, 12787 words)
Author: Loren	Added: Dec 10 2008	Views/Reads: 11843/6456	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
"Champ" a small child, waits with his family in Taejon Park, where a celestial wonder is expected to occure! But there are no promises of what exactly is going to happen...

Sky Watching - The First of June 

by Loren John Presley 

I have many wonderful memories of my childhood. From time to time I
reflect on the small, quaint neighborhood I and my family lived in, and 
the days when I and my friends would play together in the streets and 
have imaginative adventures under the hot summer afternoons. We'd swim 
in bright blue pools, jump on wide, wide trampolines, and swing on the 
branches of the neighborhood trees. I also recall sitting with my 
family under warm colorful sunsets, and cool, black, bright starry 
nights... 

I loved the sky when I was very young. When I was hardly three year's
old I was still getting to know all the many different wonderful kinds 
of skies there were: the different kinds of sunsets, the different 
kinds of stormy and windy skies, and the many other different colors 
and forms it could take. 

But above all, my fondest memories of my childhood were traveling down a
long, windy  highway every first of June into the mountains to place 
called Taejon Park to watch the spaceships... 

The spaceships had long been known as UFOs. But nobody called them that
anymore... 

You never knew what to expect when you went to Taejon Park on the first
of June. Sometimes the experience was better than others. Sometimes, 
for reasons unknown, nothing would happen. You never knew anything. 

I often recall that one night...that one first of June I would never
forget. Not ever. *** 

I and my parents left our house late in the afternoon while the bright
golden sun was still a good height over the horizon. We drove down the 
avenues and streets of our quaint, colorful neighborhood, while I 
looked dreamily out the window at some of the older kids playing on the 
lawns, or basketball in the streets. My spirits were all aflutter... 

Dad drove me and Mom through our humble, and rather rural town toward
the bright, beautiful, fertile mountains in the distance. The drive 
would be long, but I would enjoy every minute of my excitement and 
anticipation. As our car rolled into the mountains, the roads became 
high and windy. We traveled thousands of feet above sea level, and I 
looked out the window down into the deep gorges and low valleys of 
coniferous forests, wide lakes, and even a hewed pattern in a mountain 
that reminded all of us of an Aztec pyramid. 

When we had already driven hours into the mountains, the sun had sunk
lower in the sky until it had become just dim enough for the cars 
speeding down the highways to turn on their headlights. I peered 
forward to look out the front seat window, and I gazed out on the 
evening shades of sunlight reflecting off the rocky peaks and the 
grassy mountains. Things started to look familiar, and I knew we were 
almost there. 

Then, not long afterward, our car was running down a small road over
high, rolling hills full of blending shades of green grass. On the 
right side of the road, cars were parked in series for as far as the 
eye could see. Along the rolling hills lay hundreds of families sitting 
on blankets on the fields of grass, most of whom were having picnics. 

I could hear Mom and Dad talking quietly in the front seat as they
searched for a place to park. I let them talk and just gazed out the 
window up at the skies above, which were colored in the most beautiful 
and unusual silver and gray cloud formations. I cannot remember seeing 
any clouds that were more beautiful than on that day. The horizon to 
the east was getting rather dark, and I could see the mountains fading 
off into perspective under the shadows of the oncoming twilight. 

Finally Mom and Dad found a parking spot in a very small parking lot,
marked by a circular paved walkway, which I remembered seeing on our 
previous visits on the first of June. My heart thumped wildly with 
excitement. 



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