The photo on the left is my friend Susan and her husband, Ron, standing in front of his beloved Datsun 280Z. Last summer, when Stan and I were over at their house for dinner, telling them about the new car we just bought, Susan showed me this faded snapshot of Ron’s all-time favorite ride.

When she laid it down on the table, it wasn’t the snazzy lines of the Z that caught my eye—it was her distressed denim shorts. Just the sight of them, his and hers, took me back many, many years to a time when, if you wanted cutoffs, you had to chop off the legs of your pants yourself.

In fact, the picture triggered so many memories of the way we lived then that it inspired me to write a piece of flash called “The Denim Cutoffs That Made Me Cry.” It’s about cutoffs and capitalism in the time of peace, love, and bell-bottomed jeans. And just for good measure, I threw in Beyoncé too.

Naturally, I was over the moon when Fauxmoir literary magazine said they wanted to publish it. You can read it here, in Issue No. 11. I hope it brings back warm (maybe faded) memories of your favorite shredded high-rise dungarees.