I love Independence Day, July 4th. Honestly, the first wonderful things that come to my mind about the day are accumulated memories that have more to do with the holiday being the absolute pinnacle of summer than its historical significance. When I was a child growing up in Oneonta, Alabama, July 4th brought a full day of baseball at the Jaycee field, and the anticipation of pork barbecue cooked for hours and hours on a pit a few yards from the diamond. There were no organized fireworks. Something far better. Like Christmas in July, we would all bring fireworks we had been able to talk our parents into letting us get, or perhaps had obtained without actual parental consent. Some of the explosives we had access to back then would be declared WMD's now. The M-80's, cherry bombs, and silver salutes combined with the launch capability of a sling shot make me shudder as an old careful adult. Sometimes we moved all of that fun to a lake or river that someone's parents had a house on. Then you had explosives on the waterfront. A boy's dream, a parent's nightmare. That is why most children lie to their parents. It is not completely out of fear of not getting permission. It is out of compassion. Parents simply couldn't handle the truth, and children are compassionate enough to believe they shouldn't have to. I could go on and on about the comparative effects of M-80's and cherry bombs on different types of fruit and other important experiments, but I still don't want my parents to know all that went on, so I'll stop.
I intended to write something really profound about our Independence. But as I am lost in the nostalgia of great summers past, I would just say that I firmly believe that the Declarants of our Independence did us a favor in immortalizing the notion that it is a good and noble thing to encourage, and even protect, the pursuit of happiness.
So in honor of the founding fathers, enough of this indoors computer stuff, I'm on my way outside to begin the pursuit.
May you catch your happiness today.
What fun that was and I haven't thought about it in a while. I wasn't fond of the cherry bombs.
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Favorite Independence Day moments: lying on blankets directly underneath the fireworks display and feeling the particles hit my 6 year-old face as they fell to the ground; watching my brother's Irish setter repeatedly pick up lit firecrackers in his mouth, run away with them, then hit the canal behind the house to cool his mouth before coming back for another. That was the happiest dumb charred-lip dog in all of south Louisiana!
ReplyDeleteYour poll is repetitive: daydreams and love life reel are pretty much the same thing!