Independence Day!

This year, my daughter Kaitlyn spent the Fourth of July in Venice, Italy.

While she loved Venice, I suspect she was also a little disappointed in the timing.  Spending the Fourth in Italy meant no parades, no fireworks, no cruising in a boat on a Minnesota lake (although she and Bear did take a gondola ride through the canals of Venice), no picnics, no grilling burgers, no patriotic songs, no corny red, white, and blue outfits.  As Kaitlyn recently informed me, the Fourth of July is her favorite holiday - and she kind of missed out on it this year.

That got me thinking about my Independence Day celebrations of years past.  Would I have considered it my favorite holiday when I was her age?

Last weekend Lance and I were reminiscing about the summer celebrations of our childhood as we drove into the mountains to get away from the Denver heat.  We both remembered sparklers and those silly "snakes" that marked up the sidewalks with carbon residue.  We remembered writing our names in the air, drawing pictures and just running around the yard with that colorful trail from the sparklers following our every move.  I am not sure what the fascination of the "snakes" were - other than we didn't have to wait until night to light them.  (For those of you who don't know, snakes were a small cylinder of black carbon that you put on your sidewalk, lit, and they magically turned into winding puffy "snakes".)

As a kid growing up in small town Wisconsin, the highlight of the Fourth was, of course, the fireworks.  We never went to the fairgrounds where the fireworks originated, so we never saw the ground displays.  (I didn't even know there were ground displays until I was a teenager!)  Instead we carried our blankets and lawn chairs to the top of Wilson's Hill where most of the kids (and a number of adults) from the neighborhood oo'd and awe'd in amazement as we watched the colorful display of pyrotechnics high in the night sky.  And when they finished, we would hurry back home to light our sparklers - the end to a great day.

It wasn't until my teen years that I finally saw fireworks close up.  But, unfortunately, they had lost some of the mystique of my youth.  I think we watched more out of habit than fascination.  The celebration changed in my teens and early twenties - from a family get together to hanging out with my friends.  Instead of sparklers and snakes, we were more interested in the party that resulted from having a dozen or so young adults in one place.  Swimming, water skiing, grilling and finally settling in to watch the fireworks as we now jokingly oo'd and awe'd over the spectacular. 

I remember one year we traveled to Tomahawk on the Fourth for the water ski show (a big deal if you lived in Wisconsin) and then settled in on our blankets at the rivers edge for a picnic/party and to watch the fireworks.  For some reason (it may have been the beer) we decided we had to have sparklers.  Trouble was, we had no idea where to buy any so we wandered around town until we finally found a gas station that still had a few boxes left.  Unfortunately, sparklers just didn't have the same thrill for an eighteen year old as for a young child (even though we pretended they did).  I guess sometimes you just don't want to let go of the kid in you.

As young parents, the Fourth once again became a family affair...pretty tame stuff.  Grilling, sparklers, visiting relatives, and the city fireworks were the highlight of the day...until we became friends our new neighbors in Ham Lake.  For them, the Fourth was a holiday to CELEBRATE, not just a reason to grill burgers.  And, because of Terry and Chrissy, we learned to appreciate all that July Fourth had to offer.

Independence Day in Ham Lake became a day to remember.  It started with a pool party and a pot-luck barbeque complete with the prerequisite salads, burgers and hotdogs.  There was swimming, sunning, volleyball and other backyard games with friends, relatives, and much of the neighborhood.  But the highlight came in the evening as darkness approached.  You see, Terry and several other neighborhood men became children again...children who loved fireworks.

I remember the year that our rural neighborhood display rivaled the city fireworks.  Seriously.  These guys had spent unknown dollars on fireworks - bottle rockets, boxes containing multiple fireworks that created an amazing display of one colorful flower after another in the air above us, and the loud firecrackers whose only purpose was to make us jump.  The display went on and on for almost an hour.  A lone police car drove up and his only comment was "be careful and clean everything up."  Whew!

I have never seen such an aftermath.  As soon as the pyrotechnic display was done, all the guys in the neighborhood started the street clean-up.  These was so much debris they had to use a bobcat to get it all!  And everyone scoured the yards and fields to make sure nothing was left behind.  By the time the cleanup was done you would never have even suspected the spectacular show that had happened earlier that evening. 

Now I live in Colorado and we have yet to figure out exactly how the Fourth should be celebrated.

The year Lance lived here (and Kaitlyn and I were still based in Minnesota) we all traveled to Aspen and met up with some of Lance's relatives.  There we went to the Aspen band concert and watched fireworks from a downtown second story window view (which almost didn't happen because of the rain.)  The first summer we both lived here (Kaitlyn was working in Minnesota) Lance and I watched the fireworks of all the Denver suburbs that surrounded us from the deck of our condo - pretty low key.  The next year we went back to Aspen with friends, but there were no fireworks as the state was under a fire ban because of the draught.  Last year, we went to the Bandimere Speedway with more visiting friends and watched their display from the stadium after the races were finished.  And this year, with me still recovering from surgery, we grilled and then saw a few plumes of light in the night sky from the comfort of our deck, which I am guessing were the Thornton city fireworks.

Bottom line - the Fourth may not be as exciting as it once was, but it still has potential.  We just have to discover what our new Colorado traditions will be.  And once we figure that out - well, let the party begin! 

Happy Independence Day everyone!