The 4th

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. There are no gifts to wrap, no costumes to wear and you can eat whatever food you feel like eating. It’s a casual holiday filled with parades, fireworks and flag waving, three of my most favorite things ever. One usually consumes lemonade, grilled foods and ice cream on this patriotic day, but really there are no rules except maybe to get your butt outside and enjoy being alive.

I don’t recall going to fireworks displays as a child, my mom provided the entertainment. She would buy me “snakes”, punks, sparklers and paper rolls of caps that were meant to be used in a cap gun, but I didn’t have one. Instead, she gave me a hammer and I would sit in the backyard, caps in hand, pounding the little circles of gun powder until they “popped”! Tap, tap, tap, bam! Tap, tap, tap, bam! I was in my glory, but my teen-aged brother was not. You see, mom would give them to me first thing in the morning, probably to get me out of the house so she could start making potato salad in peace. Needless to say, I woke him up, but then he would join me in lighting the “snakes”. How exciting to watch them smoke and grow into these crazy shapes of black ash. If mom was lucky, that would keep me out of trouble for maybe an hour then, out came the pool or sprinkler and on went the bathing suit.

At night, she would take the emergency flares out of the car’s trunk and set them up in the backyard for me to enjoy. I would run around with my sparklers, probably still in my bathing suit and my face stained from eating watermelon and Popcicles. I would then go about collecting lightning bugs and put them in an empty mayonnaise jar with holes in the lid so I could enjoy my own private light show. Rarely, did we have anywhere to go, but that was okay, mom kept me busy and fed and life was good.

As a teenager, I got into photography. I would go to the fireworks displays at the high school, set up my tripod in the grandstand and feel like a big shot taking my long exposures to try and capture the beauty of the dazzling light show. In my twenties, I discovered the fireworks displays held on the lake shore. It was quite a long drive and then a long walk from the parking to get there, but it was so worth it. Laying on a blanket, listening to the live band play the 1812 Overture while the fireworks lit up the sky once again, I felt like a big shot because I was doing these things without my parents. I was with my friends, independent and free to do whatever I chose.

When I became a parent, I made it a point to get my kids out to those same lake shore fireworks. The last time I took them there with their father was right before my marriage hit the fan. I remember sitting there and realizing that everything that was important to me, my whole world was sitting on that blanket. I told this to my husband and asked him if he felt the same…he was silent. Shortly thereafter, he was out of our lives, but I kept up the tradition of going to the fireworks with my kids and now, my dad. Heading out to the lake shore was an endeavor, but parking was even more so. However, by this time my dad had a handicap parking pass and we discovered that having Dad along was a bonus, we were able to park right up at the lake front…yes!

Eventually making the journey to the lake shore became grueling for all of us, but I was able to get us to our local fireworks. Dad would enjoy the show sitting there, smoking his cigar and doing the blow by blow commentary of each firework. Once my kids were older, it would be just Dad and I. Sometimes a friend of mine would accompany us, but Dad and I always made it a point to get to a fireworks show. Fortunately, I found different places for us to park and still see the show because going to the fairgrounds proved to be too much. No matter what, we always made it a point to get to a show as long as the weather permitted.

I’m not certain when it began, but Dad and I developed a tradition of going to Culver’s on the 4th of July. We’d go for lunch and sit outside so we could enjoy the weather and comment on the different cars driving pass on old Route 66. On the holiday, many folks bring out their vintage cars to show them off and we were glad they did. Sitting there enjoying a cheeseburger and some ice cream, the only time we really talked was to remark, “Look at that one!” It was our thing, nothing fancy, but we were living by our own rules. In the evening, we would return to the area, parking away from the crowds, but still able to see the fireworks show. I’d set up the lawn chairs and beverages and Dad would settle in to smoke a cigar and give his commentary.

Although it was becoming a challenge, Dad and I still went to Culver’s for lunch on the 4th of July and because his walking was getting rather difficult, we drove out to a further neighborhood and watched a fireworks show from the car. The next year, I discovered that I could pre-purchase a handicap reserved parking space, so I did. We had our lunch at Culver’s and in the evening, headed out to enjoy the show. It was quite the event in this further neighborhood with live music and food vendors, very impressive. Dad really enjoyed it, no more cigars because they now made him ill, but still the commentary. No more lawn chairs, instead a wheelchair was his throne. I’m so glad I got him there and that it was a big event because it would be his last fireworks show, our last show together.

I have continued the tradition of going to Culver’s for lunch on the 4th of July. I sit on the patio and comment about the cars that drive by with whomever is kind enough to accompany me. I then make it a point, weather permitting to get to a fireworks show. However, this year there will be no show to go to and I am feeling rather nervous about going to Culver’s and sitting on the patio. I hate feeling this way, I really do. The joy and freedom I have always experienced on this holiday, waving a flag while watching a parade, eating watermelon or whatever I feel like eating, watching the fireworks and making the “Oooos and Ahhhs” as they light up the sky, has been taken from me.

I long to feel independent again, to follow no one’s rules, but my own. I want to honor my memories of this glorious day and of my folks. I want to wave my flag and I want my freedom. For weeks, people have been blowing off fireworks already in my neighborhood, my nerves raw from the uncertainty of their origin. I long for them to be replaced by the 1812 Overture, at least then I know when to expect the boom! Right now, I have no idea what to expect.

I have a lady friend who has a distinct gift of texting me at particular moments when I am in need of her words of wisdom. I just received a message, it is a poem about the unusual circumstances of this year’s 4th of July. It mentions how there may not be our traditional celebrations to enjoy, but we can fly our flags with pride for we live in a country filled with natural wonders. It really is a beautiful country and I have been blessed to see many parts of it with my own eyes. Once I am able to travel again, to live by my own rules, I will make it a priority to get my butt outside and explore our spacious skies and amber waves of grain. To enjoy purple mountain majesties and fruited plains, from sea to shining sea. While doing this, I know some how, some way my mom and dad will be with me. After all, they are the ones that instilled in me this need to be free, independent and eat whatever I feel like eating.