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Memories of the Fourth of July

March 5, 2012 Monday, Day 5 ~ 30-Day Blogging Challenge prompt is Every country has its prestigious traditions. Some of those are our favorites. In the community, you live now enumerate the good traditions you and your family are anxious to celebrate.

The one tradition that I enjoy most each year is Independence Day, the Fourth of July. I have celebrated this holiday, in one way or another, all my life. As a child, growing up in Blackwell, Oklahoma, we always celebrated it as a family.

Every year on July 4, Grandpa and Grandma Newland would pack the family up and go to Lake Blackwell. Grandpa had a trailer house, it wasn’t a mobile home like many of those today. It was a very small version of the mobile home. There was a bathroom, kitchen-living room combination, and a bedroom.

Somehow, my grandparents managed to get four children and three adults into this small house for one or two days and sometimes three or four around Independence Day. There was a wooden outhouse on the property, so we didn’t use the bathroom for anything except storage and maybe cold baths in the tub (at least, I think it had a tub instead of a shower).

On the Fourth of July, we cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill and set off fireworks on the lake’s shore. During the day we set off firecrackers and cherry bombs (at that time, there were no “safe and sane” fireworks). At night, my grandfather and other adults set off roman candles and the children sparklers. My grandfather always had a bucket of water to for the spent fireworks.

I still celebrate the Independence Day, but not in a different way. Now I stay at home and watch the fireworks on television. The professional displays are safer and more spectacular. Sitting in front of a T.V. set eating a hot dog or hamburger isn’t the same as sitting by a lake watching live fireworks, but it does have its advantages. For one thing, I can write poetry about the pyrotechnics while I’m watching the display.

True, I gripe about the neighbors setting off illegal fireworks, but I go outside and watch the display. Now I have my cell phone in hand in case I need to call the fire department or the police, but I watch the displays of fireworks the neighbors ignite.

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