I am sitting here in my Happy Place enjoying a most wonderful day. No big celebrations here, no fireworks, no parades, no barbecue with lots of people. Just a comfortable lawn chair under the big maple tree in the yard, a cool breeze and lots of sunshine and peace and quiet. It's the perfect day !
Growing up in NYC we always celebrated the forth of July at home. Our small house was on a tiny piece of property, probably no more than a 50x50 parcel of land on a street filled with other small houses. We had a couple of pear trees, some grape vines on the one side of the house and current bushes on the other side. Sometimes my Aunt Mary and Uncle George would bring cousins Ann and Raymond over fromWhitestone, Queens and we would have a picnic in the yard, sitting at the old, wooden picnic table that my parents had bought years ago on a trip to Maine. (They would tell the story of bringing the table back with them tied to the roof of the car. Can you imagine driving today from Maine to NY with a large, heavy picnic table tied to the roof of your car ? That just would't happen.)
I loved the forth of July ! For weeks before all the neighborhood kids and I would be saving up our allowances in order to go to the candy store to buy caps. If you are my age you know what caps are. They came in a roll about a half inch wide. The red paper had small dots of gunpowder all along the strip of paper and when you smacked the dots with a rock or hammer they exploded with a "POP". I can still smell the gunpowder when it exploded. I think the smell was better than the actual sound they made.
Can you imagine selling gunpowder to kids in this day and age! The HORROR !!!! But every kid I knew had caps and none of us ever were burned by them. They were pretty harmless in spite of the sound of it. If you were lucky enough to own a cap gun then you had caps year round. Most of us had cap guns that we played cowboy and Indians with. The gun opened up so that you could put the roll of caps on a small peg. Then you closed up the gun, threaded the caps out under the hammer so that they shot when you pulled the trigger. Once again . . . The HORROR !!! As far as I know none of us kids ever grew up to be murders. We were kids acting out our fantasies. (Maybe our kids now a days need to be outside running around more and learning how to play !!) If you were "shot" during a game you usually spent the next ten minutes arguing with your friends as to whether or not your were "dead". No one ever went home mad. You just came back to life and continued the game.
At my house I never had "fireworks". I don't even know if there were fireworks any where to be seen. It was all about sparklers if you were lucky enough to have them. When we first moved to Queens Village my dad was working for the Long Island Rail Road in Jamaica, Queens.. He worked in the rail yard fixing the radio and speaker systems in the railroad cars. Working in a rail yard had it's perks in that every year he brought home A flare, (just one), to light in the driveway when it got dark. He would spend all day making a holder for the flare so that it would be safe. I remember sitting on our front stoop with my mother and grand father watching my dad set up the flare in the driveway. I knew I had to stay far away from the fire because it was "dangerous". To a little kid this was very exciting !!! The neighborhood kids would all come and stand outside our fence to watch the "lighting of the flare" ! It was big time excitement for us city kids.
I think my first fireworks show was in Augusta, Maine when I was a kid. My dad had taken me to Maine to visit his friends Forrest and Ann and they took us to the state capital building for the 4th of July celebration. I remember how loud and bright the fireworks were and I remember I did not like them one bit !! So much for that big excitement. I have come to appreciate fireworks but only from a distance. I still don't like the noise!
But today there is no loud noise. Only the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and the squawking of the crows. No sounds of traffic or people. It is a wonderful place to be to appreciate this amazing country we are blessed to live in.
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