For all you(we) Yanks & other You-Ess-ians

[Opsa]

Well, mostly we just stand around on someone's patio trying to avoid eye contact with the red-white and blue cheesecake toppings and complain about the government. That's what we did, anyway.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, it's That Time again.

The Time where us Yanks and other You-Ess-ians go into the garage, and drag out the portable cookery, buy some fake [smells of petroleum] "cooking fuel", fix up the rickety aluminum folding chairs, dump out and bleach the old ice chest (THAT's where we left those hot dogs from last summer), buy some sex-in-a-canoe beer, try to get that beach umbrella working again this year [failed], dig out the old moth-eaten blankets still with sand from last time, dust off our sun hats.

Then pile all, with the kids and assorted neighbor's hangers-on offspring, into the overstuffed auto (usually a beatup pickup, with everything piled in the back, (including 4 adults in a front seat designed for 3 at most), drive to just out of town where the old, but freshly painted wooden fireworks stands are placed, wait in line to buy overpriced, and underpowered Chinese fireworks (why do we help the Chinese economy on our own country's birthday?  Ought to be Traditional to buy American-made works, on this day if none else...)... oh, don't forget the matches and lighter fluid [for the barby, silly].

Stop at the local [not-at-all] convenient store to purchase the last-minute stuff we either forgot at home, or forgot to buy yesterday (real grocery stores closed, now), including the special diet-no-caffeine-no-artificial-no-flavor-what's-the-point-anyhow brand of soda for the pick-picky in the party. 

Oh, and those floppy, cheap paper plates that dump your food for the dog.  And some last-forever-plastic cups-- [which makes one think, humanity has invented last-for-millenia-throw-away drinking cups, but cannot create an automobile that gets 60mpg.... what's up with that? ]

Finally, all arrive at the Favorite Fourth Of July Shootin' Spot-- just outside of town, to avoid the stiff fines for fireworks in town, but not so far as to be hours-long drive.  [We know it's our spot--- see the drinking cups 1/2 buried in the sand, from previous years?  With a bit of washing, they would still be sorta usable....]

Everyone piles out, gathering around the old beat-up concrete picnic table-- the one with one corner broken off, and that is so old, the surface is akin to a 60grit grinding wheel [again, this year we forgot to bring the sitting pads we promised last year we'd remember to bring-- we even set them out-- somewhere in the house].

All the ertaz food is set out on top of the old food-stained sheets we always use for a tablecloth-- see?  There's the stain from last year, where the Fanta Strawberry soda bottle dumped it's entire 2 liters, and here is the stain from 3 years ago, where the soccer ball landed smack in the middle of the not-yet-eaten, but cooling raspberry pie grandma sent, and there's the stains from the watermelon eating contest from way back when... it's a bit of family history in indelible food stains.

Did we remember to bring everything?  No?  We forgot the mayonnaise this year?  Too bad-- have to go with either plain, ketchup or mustard on the mystery-meat "hot" dogs. [why do they call them 'hot' dogs anyhow?  By the time you get them off the grill, into your bun, fix add on all the still-cool toppings, get your scoop of baked beans (to later either drip through your too-thin paper plates, or spill over the side), and a dollop of either potato salad or cole slaw or perhaps both, a spear of dill pickle and top up your drink--- the "hot" dog is room temperature..... ].

But, carefully sitting down on the rickety aluminum folding chair (so as not to cause it's premature folding), balancing your paper disc (if it's made of cardboard, it does not qualify for the word "plate") across your knees [yep, either the baked beans or the cole slaw has seeped through already] you sit back (not too far-- chair would break), take a sip of your sex-in-a-canoe, and look about and sigh:

The kids are having a blast, with their sparklers and some firework-snakes.   Some of the older ones are already shooting off bottle rockets out over the lake.   Everyone is talking like they are best of friends, and familial differences momentarily put aside, to enjoy just being here in a melu of social interaction-- like the good little monkeys we are underneath the thin veneer of civilization.

THIS is why we come, every year.  The fireworks, when it finally gets dark, are only a short punctuation mark for the real reasons we pause and celebrate:  we are social creatures-- we do best when we are being social.

Much, much later, when the little kids are snoozing on the shoulders of tired parents, being carried back to the vehicles, and your ears are still ringing from those super-giant but only slightly illegal "ultimate rocket-bombs" that uncle Phil brought [where he got them, you don't ask and really don't want to know], all the trash you could see was gathered up and stuffed into the overly full 55 gallon trash barrels [including the last-for-a-1000-years-but-disposable cups], all the leftover food scraped out for the wildlife (you can still hear the gulls arguing over some of it), all the folding chairs folded for another year, dragging the cooler [this year, you promise to clean it out as soon as you get home]... and you look back and wonder.

Why can't we be like this all year around?

*sigh*

I suppose, if we did, this special day would no longer be.... special.

Happy You-Ess Birthday, everyone.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

 

[pieces o nine]

Poetry, Bob.   


*We* just roasted "all beef" hot dogs on purloined-from-the-garden bamboo sticks (could not find toasting forks in any moving box) on a small hibachi in the back yard. Marshmallows afterwards.

[Aggie]

I'll submit my Canada Day report elsewhere, as this seems to be for y'all down in the southlands, what with the bombs bursting in air, bad beer and all....

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

You mean there's good beer? 

[Aggie]

Yes, even in the US...  but they don't advertise it.

[Pachyderm]

Sshhh. Don't tell, them, they'll all want it..

[Opsa]

Much of our good beer is brewed by micro-breweries that don't have enough money to do much advertising.

We backed out of a party on the 4th and just stayed home, BBQed (veggie burger for me, and French wine- oops!). At dusk the neighborhood kids lit fire fountains. That was quite enough excitement for me.

[Pachyderm]

You might want to be careful about advertising the French wine. Homeland Security may well decide that drinking it is Un-American behaviour. Ah, the heady days of Macarthyism, what fun we had....

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

According to the new Texas history texts McCarthyism has been vindicated...

At least Chatty didn't have to see that. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, another year has passed our Hallowed Halls.

And another Godless Constitution day has rolled around the calendar.

Soon, wooden-shingle roofs will be at risk all around the country, as children light off Chinese fireworks in celebration.

It's Traditional to use Chinese fireworks, after all.    Besides, you can't get anything else....

... and much American Beer*  will be drunk, and many will be the backyard with odoriferous corners come morning.... you cannot consume that much liquid, without voiding it, and the bathrooms are so very, very far away....

... especially if one is... well, drunk.

... and there are many a Truly Dedicated fireman standing by, skipping his or her holiday, so's they can rescue the stupid from being stupid again.... along with the faithful emergency room doctors, nurses and staff at the local Buildings of Mercy.

.... *sigh*...

But for the majority, it will be loud pops, patriotic songs, local bands, kids playing, being >>outside<< for a change, and buckets of pretty lights in the sky for a half-hour or so.  And booms.  Cannot forget the chest-pounding pressure-wave and the **boom** that follows.

A thrill a minute, for several minutes there.

But as I pause to write this, and ponder?

I'm reminded of this:  

The USA is founded on a Godless Document, and deliberately so.

And that brings me a smile, to be reminded of that, if only for one day.


So.

Happy Godless Constitution Day, everyone!

________

* canoe water

[pieces o nine]

Hear!!  Hear!!  
Here's to the godless document!  


            

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

and that it remains so!!

[Opsa]

That's really what it was about, too. But we don't dare say it around certain company.

We stayed here and BBQed with our next door neighbors. I never thought I'd be the type to be content with neighborhood BBQ and legal firecrackers out on the street in front of our house, but I've reached that mellow point in my life.

Our neighbs are very active in their Methodist church, even run the Bible camp there. I cringed a little as they told me their plans to holler Bible phrases at the kids though a large cardboard tube, but hey- it's their church and if that's what they do, well ...erm ...okee... what they do behind their church doors is not business of mine. They are very nice people though, and th'Opsalette has a good time with their kids and having friends in the neighborhood is definitely on the blessing side of life.

The kids decorated their bikes with streamers and we took a post-supper walk around our tiny town to walk off the burgers (mine were veggie) and cabbage salad. The town was pretty lifeless, except for the Latino families, who seemed to be having the best parties. I was asked to carry a home-made American flag, which I waved as the rear guard of the six-person parade.

Later, having donned glo-bracelets, we lit grocery-store bought fireworks in the middle of our street, and caught glimpses of a distant fireworks display over the trees. Someone in town shot off some illegal bottle rockets and we cheered for them. Clouds of sulfuric smoke made the street look like a blitzkrieg situation. A light rain fell. No hands were blown off. We cheerily shouted good night around 10pm. All in all, a pretty good time.