The Fourth Of July

[Angie/admin]

The fourth of July has been my favorite holiday since I can remember. I remember my first fireworks show as if it was just yesterday.. I was a little girl of five years old and my sister Jen was four. My father carried my sister and I out to the beat up old rusty green family car, softly placing us both in the back seat with a blanket and pillow. We had been sleeping already and my mother had argued with my father to just let us sleep but dad insisted on taking us to the fairgrounds to see our first fireworks show. Off the three of us went to a show of a lifetime.. I sat in the back seat staring out the window in a sleepy haze but feeling excited and antisipation as to what I was going to see...We pulled onto the long dirt road that led to the fairgrounds all the while Hank Williams blaring on the car radio. Dad parked the car near a clearing without trees and there we sat for what seemed like forever. I had started to doze off and then I heard my father voice say "Look girls!" I looked in the sky just in time to see the beautiful array of colors falling from the sky another colorful spectrum filled the sky with light followed by the loudest scariest boom I had ever heard in my life..It scared me to death and I started to cry. Dad pulled us girls into the front seat and held us both on his lap, arms wrapped around us so tight to keep us safe and whispered in our ears, "sshh don't cry, this is a day of celebration of our freedom. Don't fear the noise and colors in the sky they wont harm you. Feel them in your soul, it will touch you right down to your toes." We watched the show without crying and after every firework that exploded in the sky I would glance at my fathers face, there he sat with the biggest smile on his face.

Every fourth of July dad would take me and my sister to a fireworks show. We stood like a famiy, arm and arm. Huge grins on our face looking into the big sky watching the beautiful colors lighting the sky and the big booms that once scared me would fill my ears with happiness.

I remember the last show my father would live to see. It was the summer of 1992, I was fifteen years old. We had gone to the annual fair. Rode rides and played games. My father and I were just coming off this ride that you sat two people in this cage and it spun up and down while going around this tall loop. We heard the first boom and went running to catch the show. All of us stood in the parking lot next to the stadium watching the show not realizing that we were close to where they were setting the fireworks off. As we looked to the sky watching the colors and hearing the big booms the fireworks were falling down on us. Trying to dodge the falling fireworks, lauging and enjoying the show, my father leaned into my ear and said "Ange, every boom you hear is for every man who died giving his life for us to have this day, our freedom"
Three months later my father died. My father taught me the value, the meaning, the love and appreciation for the fourth of July.

Every fourth of July I always go to a fireworks show. I make it a point to look up at the sky before the show starts, smile big and tell my dad I love him.. And when that first boom and big colorful spectrum fills the sky with light I always shed a tear. The tears are not of sadness but of appreciation for the country I live in.

[Delilah]

Wonderful story, Ange, and a great analogy to the "booms"!

I, too, always get choked up when that first one goes off, but never thought about it as your dad said, I will think differently from now on!

I get choked up at the circus, too! I guess because my grandmother always made it a point to take us.

Seems like memories are created long and deep into our childhood.

[Denise mom to 'Charles Horvath']

Happy 4th July 2009