I imagine it wasn’t very aerodynamic, and it floated like a knuckle-ball captured by one of those new, super slo-mo cameras, rotating only about one full revolution before the squared, red and white wax-paper gallon of Hood milk suddenly sped up and exploded white wet all over the bright, green, yellow and black flowered wallpaper in the kitchen of my life in May, 1970. At the time, I didn’t realize my decent throwing arm was inherited from my mother, or that she possibly was a former mustachioed East-German shot-putter, but my young mother of barely 30 years fired that thing at my ducking dad. I had been awoken by the yelling and crept down the 3 left turns of the attic stairs from my room, somehow defying gravity enough to minimize the revealing squeaks of every cracked, grey deck-painted step. Just as I craned my head into the short hallway toward the kitchen, I witnessed the identified flying object.

My mother was crying and yelling “GET OUT,” among other things she’d probably deny today, but I don’t recall hearing anything out of my dad, nor do I know to this day what caused the conflict on that night. I just know that enduring image of a flying milk carton punctuated my family’s last night in our house together. The next day Mom drove my two younger brothers and me to Auntie Judy’s for the first day of the worst summer of my life. I imagine it wasn’t too great for Mom or Dad either.