July 4th holiday

The fourth of July was always a big deal in our family. It was my father's birthday. It was in the middle of summer and vacations. It was an excuse to play with fire, which I learned was a huge deal to boys. When we were young we always had sparklers on my dad's cake, and I would stage our summer theater/musical performance for that day. We always had a big cookout with the neighbors and we always had fireworks in the evening. Our friends, the Smiths, started the tradition when they visited us on the fourth, bringing a trunk load of fireworks picked up on the drive down in a state where it was legal.

Mr. Smith and my dad rigged up a cannon with a tennis ball can and fireworks and we spent hours chasing balls and projectiles that were shot out of it. We use to move from neighbors house to neighbors house each year and as we grew older we migrated to the street in front of our houses where it was easy to run from the police if they happened to patrol.

We always went to the country club in the morning where the pool would have games and races that we all completed in. They would release goldfish into the pool and we would come home with them in bags and put them in jars where they would last for a few days before the chlorine would finally do them in. The last game of the day would be a huge watermelon that was greased with Crisco and thrown into the pool. Two teams would compete and the first team that pushed the watermelon to the opposite side of the pool was declared the winner. This was the one game that the dads loved to participate in so they could show off their muscles and strength, but their competitiveness coupled with the children wanting to join the fun made for some scary moments. Everyone came out of the pool all greasy, but happy and everyone got watermelon.

As I got older I had to work on the fourth of July. (I outlawed the greased watermelon game) But once the pool was closed we would head home for cake and fireworks and maybe join our friends and head downtown to watch the city's firework display. It was always a good holiday.

I've tried to keep that alive with my family. This year we had friends over and we swam and played water volleyball. We had games where the kids took on the parents and the girls took on the boys. We played cards and board games. Tom grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. Our friend brought fireworks and sparklers. And we all had watermelon.

Hope everyone had a great July 4th!