The 4th
I've switched allegiances - May the Fourth Be with You
I used to love the 4th of July. As a child in the San Fernando Valley, the suburbs north of Los Angeles over the hill from Hollywood, we would have a big 4th of July holiday feast - hot dogs and potato chips, sodas and watermelon. We would swim in the backyard pool at day, our skin wrinkled, tight and sore from sunburn, chlorine smell evaporating from our skin.
Then when it got dark, Dad would light the box of fireworks we had bought at the shack on the corner, sparklers and whirlygigs and cones and snakes.
A neighbor played with matches one year, when his parents were on vacation. He made a “firecracker” out of matchheads and a CO2 canister that was part of the bullet making apparatus that his father had for hunting. It exploded and a piece of the metal pierced his heart in the middle of the street in front of his house. His parents were on vacation for a week. Lonnie died, their only son, leaving the parents with 4 girls. This was my second family, the people I stayed with across the street after school because my parents worked.
After that, much of the joy of the 4th of July was taken from us. We would gather at the neighborhood park, crowding in on blankets with so many others - a prepandemic lifestyle - and watch the L.A. Fire Department light up the sky with professional fireworks. And then, because of fire dangers, fireworks were outlawed all over Southern California. No more would we ever light fireworks for the 4th of July.
As an adult, I often took vacations over the 4th of July weekend, the slow period of the academic year. Estes Park, CO, Sterling Park, VA, Lawrence and Ozawkie, KS. One year, after we had moved to Ozawkie and bought a house on a lake, we had a small boat. We motored to the dam and anchored with all the other small boats to watch fireworks lit off from the dam structure. This was shortly after 9/11. It was the last time they would light fireworks from the dam for fear of terrorist activities. That night, we fell asleep in the boat waiting for all the boat traffic to depart in the dark. We woke alone at 1:30 am from the buzz of truck-sized mosquitoes. With a flashlight, we navigated back to our little boat ramp cove, getting lost in the process and almost grounded the boat in the mud in an unfamiliar cove. Everything is unfamiliar in the dark.
One year, we camped in Cambria, CA. For a surprise, on 4th of July, we took a long drive up Pacific Coast Highway 1 from Cambria to San Francisco, through the gorgeous heights of Big Sur with its 1000 foot cliffs next to the sea. It was an early morning trip and most of the windy road was covered in fog. I drove slowly, unfamiliar with the road, fearful of missing a turn and tumbling to our deaths thousands of feet below, the only time my fear of heights ever came into play while sitting in a car. We made the trip into San Francisco to buy a Hard Rock Cafe pin. As we were at Pier 39, it seemed that the entire population of the bay area was streaming onto the wharf. We drove against traffic down the 101, completing our 12 hour circle drive and arrived back at our camp in Cambria just in time to sit next to an open campfire and watch someone light fireworks over the ocean.
This year, I’m in Atlanta, where they sell packs of fireworks in Walmart. For weeks, the displays have offered their wares and been dwindling. I’m not used to places where fireworks are legal, though most all things incendiary are legal in Georgia.
I live in an America that I don’t recognize anymore. Between the shootings and the erosion of civil rights, a political Supreme Court, a government that can’t decide on basic ways to help its populace - this is not an America I wish to celebrate. In fact, like many others, I feel like America doesn’t represent me nor my interests anymore, and I’ve looked into how to leave. Did you know it costs money to renounce one’s American citizenship, about $2,300? So, if you are poor, you are not free to leave.
America - the land of freedom. The irony looms large in my mind.
I’m a Dodgers fan, but I subscribe to the S.F. Giants’ manager’s (Gabe Kaplan’s) position of not standing for the national anthem until our country starts heading in the right direction. We’ve been heading the wrong way for far too long.
When conspiracy theorists can hold positions in Congress, when a rep. doesn’t understand what a theocracy is and says they’re tired of the separation of church and state, when the Supreme Court can strip women of the rights to their own bodies, it’s time to re-evaluate what we believe. I still believe fundamentally in what America stands for - a place where dreams can come true, a place for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But whoever’s driving the bus - on either side - is taking us in the wrong direction.
So, I’ll celebrate the 4th. May 4th. As in, ‘May the 4th Be With You.’ There is a Force in this universe greater than the dysfunction we find around us on a daily basis, a Force of good, a Force of kindness and generosity, of learning and growing that’s not marred by toxic positivity - a true altruism.
Fireworks or not, I’ll continue to act to make this world a better place. Will you?
However you celebrate, I hope you enjoy some restful time with family and friends.
For me, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!