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June 30, 2005
Me at age 9: "I get to blow up things? Best. Holiday. Ever."
Woo hoo! It's a holiday weekend!
I used to love the 4th of July as a kid. My grandparents always made sure it was special and that there were plenty of sparklers for little twerps like me.
As I grew older I discovered the things that feature so prominently in all our memories: firecrackers, smoke bombs, etc. Kentucky was/is one of those states that have decided to restrict the sales of fireworks so everything out of that class of fireworks had to be smuggled in from other states. (It’s the same way here in Minnesota. To get anything with significant lift or display you have to drive to Wisconsin.)
One of my old neighbors growing up, Dean, had a father that understood the need for better fireworks. Dean never lacked for bottle rockets, tanks, mortars, etc. Going to Dean’s house the week before the 4th was torture: Dean used to lay his fireworks out on display before the holiday arrived. I remember swooning at the sight of all the potential pyrotechnics.
(Dean was always lucky with that sort of thing. When we were kids and Planet of the Apes toys where huge Christmas saw some of us maybe having enough luck to get an Astronaut. Dean got Ape City, the Treehouse and everything else. Playing at Dean's house was awesome.)
A few years ago I was back in Kentucky for the 4th. (The same occasion that saw the Kentucky Philosopher opine on having a baby.) Where we all had chipped in to buy things for the kids to enjoy we were soon outclassed by our host’s crazy neighbors. They had, through some questionable means, purchased professional munitions grade fireworks. After the first volley we gave up and watched the show that put the one directly across the river, sponsored by the city of Ironton, to shame.
Our plans for the 4th are pretty tame. No big excitement. No rockets. Jack’s too young for sparklers. I think we’re headed to dinner at some point with some friends but I’m not the social director. Swimming lessons are out for Saturday morning so it will probably just be Jack and I goofing around while Fabulous Babe goes to the gym.
I did buy a hammock stand for our hammock so at some point that’s going to get a trial run with some shade and a very cold glass of lemonade. God bless Target clearance sales. I imagine that Brats and beer will also figure into the equation somehow.
Canada day is Friday so “Happy Canada Day!” to all of my faithful readers up North. (Speaking of which who is it that keeps lurking from Midland Walwyn?) All of you get to start early where we have to try to make it to Tuesday without hangovers.
I'm scheduling time to fix all of the photo links. (That and continue my efforts to fix all of the apostrophes and quotation marks that got fouled up with the archive import. Other things are proceeding equally well...
Posted by Jim at June 30, 2005 11:34 PM