by Alice Rush
THIS YEAR for the 4th of July I came to recognize my age a little bit. I was perfectly happy to be home with no plans. There wasn’t even a local parade in the small towns nearby – which is too bad because I always like the sweetness of little town parades.
In my young adult years, I spent many Independence Days preparing food for a cooler, making a trip on the metro and then taking a long walk before noon just to sit on the cramped Washington D.C. Mall on a picnic blanket all afternoon. You had to be early to get a prime spot. I wouldn’t want to do it now, but those are great memories of being seated near the orchestra and the cannons, so that when they fired off during the playing of the 1812 Overture, you could feel the ground shake.
I was trying to remember the bicentennial celebration in 1976. Our neighbors had their basement room wallpapered with a bicentennial motif – militia men, flags, eagles. Large eagle emblems were a big decoration too, usually over doorways or in the peaks of houses. There were bicentennial plates and glasses too. I don’t remember the day that year at all, only the images.
My family didn’t ever do much for the holiday, likely because my parents were the same age then that I am now. I have one special memory from childhood when I was with my oldest sister and her family. She is 21 years older than I am, so her 2 girls and I are close in age. My nieces and I must have been 3 to 7 years old. I remember laying back on the picnic blanket and seeing the fireworks right over our heads. I think we all fell asleep in the car on the way home.
FOLKS in the Netherlands might be surprised to know that the 4th of July is about the only time that fireworks are used outside of major football games or concert venues. Many states do not allow sales to the general public, so it’s illegal to have them.
It was a big deal in my teen years for someone to have small fireworks. If you were fortunate to live near a state line and that state sold fireworks, you could illegally purchase the fireworks and bring them back home. Some kids got their kicks by throwing “cherry bombs” in the mailboxes at the ends of driveways. I don’t know what those were, or if we still have them, but they could really mess up a metal mailbox. To this day I’m a little nervous around fireworks because I have no firsthand experience, and I have always taken all the warnings about injuries very seriously.
The celebration this year was without fireworks or fanfare. Our neighbors had some fireworks that we could hear. I got to relax. But make no mistake, I am celebrating by being deeply respectful and grateful for all the people who made, and make, all that is good in America. That encompasses a lot of people of all backgrounds, beliefs and colors, and together we’re all going to be sure our country stays one of which we can be proud.
* Alice is a Maine realtor and a licensed helicopter and fixed wing pilot. She first met her Dutch husband in Maryland in 2005, and married him four years later.
