I’m enjoying a cool and quiet morning here on the back porch, with my Community Cafe Roast and a couple of Doves as an audience, parked on the fence eyeing me and the empty feeders.

Peacefully quiet. That will change soon enough. It IS  the Fourth.      

Today, the Fourth of July is the day we celebrate our Independence. No more were we as a people, willing to stand by and be ruled and oppressed by a foreign tyrant. 

(I’ll save my comments on the similarities to our current political situation for another post)

 We praise the patriots, who at great personal risk and risk of life, spoke out and more importantly wrote down our Declaration and our Bill of Rights. And today this will be celebrated by children of all ages blowing stuff up and causing general mayhem.

It’s a safe bet that if you were to ask the average 16 year old down at the fireworks stand what today was all about, the response you would get would include beer, beach and blowing shit up. But maybe I’m being to hard on ‘em. After all, I was a kid once, a long time ago and just as excited at the possibility of going out to the STAND.

I was about 15 and back in Plainview when I was asked if I would help repaint the old fireworks stand on the dirt road that led to the airport. Hell, why not. Maybe pick up a few blackcats or bottle rockets left behind, you never know. Besides, It was July in Plainview, we were hot, bored and looking for anything to do that didn’t involve working out in the sorghum fields for the seed companies.

My partner was the artist. I was along to paint in between the lines as it were. A day in the sun, on our own, no supervision…perfect.

We spent the entire day on the shack. In the end, it was quite a site. big exploding fire crackers bursting on the sides, bottle rockets blazing across the corners and a big black cat head, sneering down from the center. Across the front, in what we thought was a cool oriental font, were the words to let every one know this was the place for pyrotechnics. We left the scene proud of our artistic accomplishment and paused down the road to look back and admire…In bold semi-asian letters we had proclaimed—-   

FIREWOKS

We laughed so hard we cried. I don’t remember ever getting paid for our handy work, but that didn’t mater much. At least we weren’t out in the fields.

Happy Independence Day

jodon