Fourth of July

A friend invited me to spend the Fourth of July at her mother's house. Her mother lives on a farm south of Mulvane and enjoyed (!) hosting a large group of her children, grandchildren, and friends. Did I mention her mother is saint and lovely woman?

The place is lovely with lots of trees and fields. Since it was a warm day, I was particularly fond of the trees. Based on the previous evening outdoors, I doused myself liberally with insect repellent in hopes of keeping the number of bug-induced welts on my body from increasing. My friends were also going through bottles of the stuff.

The first order of business was to bundle the friend's children and husband into a pickup truck and drive across a field and through the trees until we reached a clearing spot along the Arkansas River. That was the campsite. I didn't stay overnight, but I did help clear out sand burs and entertain the little ones while the parents pitched the tent. Another couple followed in a different pickup truck. They wisely decided to forgo camping in the sandy stretch near the river in favor of a wildflower meadow.

My friends were pulling stickers out so that they wouldn't be pricked through the floor of the tent. I helped for awhile, but I was wearing flip-flops, the stickers hurt, and frankly, I wasn't going to be sleeping there. The husband leaned on a patch of stickers and yelped, "Fuck." His wife said, "Language, Daddy." Then she knelt on a patch of stickers and shouted, "Oh holy mother of fuck!" And he said, "Language, Mommy." I liked to die laughing. I remember when these two called each other by their given names and didn't police language one bit. The husband wound up getting gloves and needle-nosed pliers for the sticker work.

It was sweaty, sticky work, but we were very pleased with ourselves. The dirt was also starting to stick to us and our insect-repellent covered selves. The insects seemed enamoured again so we all sprayed ourselves with the stinky stuff again. At this point, I stopped worrying about whether someone would notice I forgot my deodorant.

Then we all bundled into cars, caravaned back to town and bought fireworks. What I mean when I say "bought fireworks" is filled our cars with so many explosives it is a wonder the ATF wasn't concerned about the sweaty, dirt-streaked people who reeked of anti-bug chemicals. No one noticed a thing, and the fireworks folks happily took our money. We went off to roast hot dogs, make smores and begin to celebrate. Just for good measure, we dumped a bunch of bug repellent on ourselves. After a while it starts to smell pretty good.

My friend convinced me to try my hand at shooting a gun. It wasn't like the rifle my uncle used to teach me how to shoot clay pigeons when I was twelve. That thing hurt my shoulder when it fired. This was a little handgun, which felt almost to light and gentle to even be a gun. We shot at soda cans. I got very close to hitting a can or two, but no cans, people or animals were harmed.

Then we settled in to watch fireworks. Correction: I settled in to watch fireworks. Everyone else ran around with punks and fired the noisy things. They were beautiful, colorful, and squealed. I enjoyed the show a great deal. My favorite seven-year-old (featured in the photo above) got tired and sat next to me. I was pleasantly surprised when she climbed up in my lap and fell asleep. I used to hold her when she was little, and I thought those days were long past. It was a terrific day.