FOURTH OF JULY REFLECTIONS

It is hard to believe that it is already so close to the 4th of July. I guess time has a way of moving on especially as you get older. It seems that when you were a child time took forever to get from one holiday to the next. Now they seem to merge so quickly that I just get the dishes cleaned and put away from one, then it is time for another:)

When I was growing up, the 4TH of July was always one of the most exciting holidays of the year. We lived on the lake and before we moved there, we had a small house on the lake where we would spend most of the summer, especially weekend's and summer holidays. My aunt and uncle, Ruth and Jimmerson, spent most of the family outings with us. Daddy and Jimmerson could cook some of the best food you have ever tasted. Daddy could make great stews that he would cook on an open fire outside and stoke the fire with all kind of wood that gave the food a wonderful smoky flavor. He would also fry catfish outside in a black pot that had been around forever. I guess it had belonged to one of my grandmothers or great grandmothers. Then he would make these yummy hush puppies that just melted in you mouth. Mother and Ruth would do all the inside cooking and preparing.

Now Jimmerson had been a cook in the army during WW ll so he could cook up some tasty dishes. He had this recipe for BBQ sauce that was different from any I have ever tasted. It was not a heavy red sauce, but a transparent sauce that had a combination of oil, vinegar, lemon juice, tomato juice and lots of hot spices. I have tried over the years to find something that tasted similar, but have never been able to get the right flavors. He would throw all kind of stuff on the grill, ribs, pork chops, chicken, hamburgers hot dogs, you name it and the whole time they were cooking he would baste the meat with his special sauce. When you took you first bite the meat would just fall off the bone and you would have to grab a glass of tea because of the spiciness of the sauce, but you would just keep going back for more because it was so delicious.

All of the kids would swim and ski. We usually stayed in the water all day and would come up to the house just long enough to grab another helping of food. Mother would always tell us to wait a hour before we went back in the water. We would say yeah, yeah, yeah and off we would go again. Those were some really fun times.

As our kids were growing up we would try to make it a point of finding a nice spot to watch the fireworks display. Sometime we would go down to Turtle Point and sit on a blanket on the golf course, other times we would go over to the dam and take lawn chairs and sit on the lock. That was before 9-11, now they have the dam all barricaded off and you can't go down and enjoy the view anymore. It is always thrilling to sit and watch the firework explode in the sky. For some reason it always makes you feel exceptionally patriotic. Usually you are sitting their among people you don't know and probably wouldn't be comfortable with in any other situation, but tonight on the 4th of July, you feel relaxed and safe and happy almost as if all these strangers are family. Not too many times in the year that you get this feeling.

Sixteen years ago on the 4th of July, Daddy was in the CC unit at ECM. He had had open heart surgery and was not doing well. All the family had gathered at the hospital because we new the end was near. My brothers, sister and I went into the unit for one the our last visits with Daddy. The unit is built in a round design. The blinds were up and we had this magnificent view of the sky overlooking the river. It must have been about 9:00 o'clock and as we were standing there with Daddy, the fireworks began lighting up the sky. We had the most wonderful view of a fireworks display I had ever witnessed. I thought how ironic that the only thing separating all the festivities of a 4th of July celebration and the pain and suffering inside the CC unit was just a thin piece of clear glass.
Daddy past a little later that night. He would have considered it an appropriate send off.