Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Happy 4th of July

  reworked, revised, revisited...yes, you've read parts of this before

The sky is pure blue,  painted that way as G'ma said every time she looked up.  The occasional fluffy white cloud drifts by, and I'm hearing G'ma remark on that, too.  The flag in front of the house is swaying, the pole wedged between the base and the capital of one of the front columns, secured with thin, silver, crafting wire.  

It's an elegant solution to TBG's reluctance to put holes in his house;  I feel like Daddooooo every time I wrap another ring around the post.

Daddooooo was big on ingenious remedies to intractable problems.  He was also big on flags and the 4th of July.  We always went to the beach.  We always stopped at Custom Bakers on the way home, where the owners always let us go back and stick our fingers in the vats of frosting.

We always went to the Boardwalk in Long Beach, arriving as the sun was setting.  Skeeball and mechanical fortune tellers and the smell of the ocean, too black to be seen but too noisy to go unnoticed, occupied us as we waited for night to fall.  We practiced our ooohs and aahhhs; we were in fine form by the time the booms and the bangs began.

Through it all, the flags were flying.

There was a big one in the bracket beside the garage door, until the house was painted and further holes were frowned upon (is this some kind of male thing I just don't get?). A pole-holding-tube was sunk into the flower box, and while it was neither sturdy nor attractive, it did the job and as far as Daddooooo was concerned that was that.

There was always a plastic flag attached to the car's antenna, and all our bicycles had flags on the handlebars.   

I'm not letting the tradition fade away. 

Wearing my red white and blue tie dye - the dress, the tank top, the even bigger tank top - as I go through my day, bringing red and blue berries with whipped cream to the new next door neighbors who've invited us for late afternoon snacks, I'll be remembering what we always did.   

Happy 4th of July, denizens!  Let us live to continue to protect and create a more perfect union.

3 comments:

  1. I've been to a local parade and a parade route brunch. I've reminisced over classic cars ( am I now a "classic"?) and hitched a ride mid route on our classic Pop-top VW Bus, Gus. Tom and I are home now enjoying a little respite before rejoining family at SIL Jan's place on the sound. There will be home launched fireworks all around the bay. No big show anymore, just people enjoying their own bang up time.
    Happy Independence Day!

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