Independence Day

Random memories from many Northern Wisconsin 300 person home town Fourth of July holidays...

1. Kids decorating our bikes for the parade.
2. Old fellows wearing hats from the American Legion.
3. Pumpkin ball games [where the men would play baseball with a ball the size of a pumpkin].
4. Watermelon [available only one day a year].
5. Contests to see who could spit the watermelon seeds the farthest.
6. My Swedish grandma having my grandpa nail spinning fireworks to the pole that held up the laundry drying line in our back yard.
7. Waiting breathless for my Dad to come back into town from working far away, his auto trunk loaded with fresh yellow corn that we shucked and boiled in a big pot.
8. The sun setting long into the northern evening as bratwurst sausages cooked on a charcoal grill.
9. Fireflies dancing in the fading light, the only fireworks our town could afford.
10. Hearing a phonograph record in our small living room playing "Hooray For The Red White and Blue".
11. The odd feeling, even then, that those sort of days were rapidly dwindling in number.
12. Freedom, glorious freedom.

Happy Fourth of July to all freedom seekers everywhere.
ML

Photo Credit: Marthastewart.com