When I was in college I worked at a camp one summer.
The camp was in the mountains in California, by Fresno. Bear in mind: the camp was up high, and Fresno was down below. This was important when it came to the Fourth of July.
I don’t remember much about the Fourth of July at camp, except feeling that the camp people had no idea how to celebrate America. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations. I wanted a big fireworks display over the lake, with all the campers wearing glowstick necklaces and swaying arm-in-arm while the band played “God Bless America,” and “America the Beautiful,” and the national anthem.
That would have been fantastic and it doesn’t sound like too much to ask, to me.
Instead I’m pretty sure nothing Fourth-of-July-ish happened. Or so little as to count as nothing.
I worked in the kitchen. And I have no memory of adding red or blue food dye to ANYTHING we cooked. What? Why wouldn’t we have? I now have two kids and I know that if I want to make a day feel special, all I have to do is add food dye to something at every meal and work in some sprinkles if possible.
My sister and her husband worked and lived at the camp year-round, so unlike the rest of us, they had a car. They offered to take me and my boyfriend down the mountain to where we could see the fireworks in Fresno, where apparently people care about things like Freedom.
They didn’t promise anything special, just fireworks … from a distance. Obviously I wanted fireworks, so we went.
We drove a little ways down the mountain and pulled off somewhere where there was a view of Fresno (situated, as you remember, at the bottom of the mountain). And eventually there were fireworks. And that’s when I realized how substantially I had miscalculated my elevation. It sounds insane, but I had actually expected to look up when the fireworks started. Instead, we were looking down at teensy little blinks of light, so very far down, in the distant city below us. It was one of the most disappointing moments of my life.
And there it is. Hume Lake wins the prize for my worst Fourth of July memory.
Note: I’m now going to eat the food-dye-saturated patriotic cupcakes my kids made & decorated with gobs of sprinkles and little hand-drawn paper American flags, right before we go outside and set off fireworks from our OWN DRIVEWAY LIKE REAL AMERICANS.
Emily H.
I have no scars from Fourth of July celebrations—either physical, mental, or emotional. I have one memory that has been burned in by flames, but from a safe distance.
When I was around ten years old my cousins lived on a farm on the other side of town. It wasn’t a working farm at all, but they had an old barn where we could sometimes scare up a coon. One time their dog had puppies out there, which was pretty magical.
So on the Fourth of July we went out to their farm and my uncle and Grandpa shot off quite a lot of fireworks. Fireworks are illegal in Iowa, but many people buy them across state lines and the law enforcement usually turn their backs on Independence Day. At least that’s my understanding.
Anyhow, the adults and my older cousins sat at the edge of the yard in a messy tree line and shot them out over the bordering cornfield. My brother and I weren’t used to such loud, smelly explosions. We usually just enjoyed sparklers and watching the town fireworks, and that was enough. So we climbed a nearby tree together that night and watched from the safety of our perch, while our cousins clambered over the bottle rockets. I remember feeling thankful that my brother and our youngest cousin climbed the tree that night too. I was the only girl and always felt I had to prove myself. But this was a night when it was okay to keep my distance without feeling like a sissy.
Cedar
The yellow house on Haven Road is where I spent the first 18 years of my life. Our neighbors, Morris and Marge Thompson were a generation older than my parents and very much like a great uncle and aunt to my brothers and me. Morris and Dad shared such a passion for gardening that we eventually replaced the wooden fence between our yards with chain link, so that we could admire one another’s gardens.
The Thompsons often had gatherings at their home for various holidays and family birthdays, and because they were the kindest ever, they’d always invite us too. So, in the summer of 1990, when the Fourth of July rolled around, they invited us over (along with their extended family) to watch fireworks on their driveway. Their grandkids were there, but I was too shy to say anything more than, “hello,” (which I did, because it was the polite thing to do). But I was very happy to be standing alone on the warm cement, bare feet, watching in wonder at the tiny explosives being lit off only a few yards in front of me.
Without any warning, the son-in-law married to the eldest Thompson daughter walked up to me (loomed over me, it felt), and without any greeting said, “Daaaaaang girl! That’s a big ol’ gap between your toes giiiiiiirl! Dang, whatchyou wear flip flops all the time or what?!” I can’t remember what I said (if anything at all), but I do have a distinct memory, of looking down at my toes and realizing that I did indeed have a rather large gap between my big and second toe. (Is it called the “second toe”? It’s the piggy that “stayed home” anyway.) I was mortified.
Looking back now, I really think he was sincerely impressed with the size of the great divide between my toes, but from that day on, I became extremely insecure about it. So much so, that even now, when I’m feeling embarrassed, I cross my big toe over the one next to it. Which of course looks way less weird than a gap between the two.
Emily M.
Most years we either stay home and do our own fireworks, or we go somewhere and watch fireworks from a distance, or we don’t do anything fireworks-related at all. But on this particular fourth of July, we found ourselves at a location that had the golden combination — a pretty terrific fireworks display, coupled with a relatively small crowd. As a result, we found a spot for our little family of four and our friends’ family (also of four) to watch the show from virtually right under the fireworks.
We set up our chairs and laid down our blankets and waited for the sun to set and the show to get going. We had everything we needed to have a good time: snacks galore, glow-sticks, and good company.
When the time came, we were astonished and delighted to discover how close we really were, how loud and bright and big the fireworks were. We ditched the chairs and sprawled out on the blankets so we could look straight up into the beautiful, sparkling night sky. It was fantastic.
That is, it was fantastic until we discovered the one key drawback to being right under an impressive fireworks display.
Ash.
When you’re watching fireworks sizzle and glimmer from a distance, what you generally don’t notice is the nearly invisible ash that floats steadily down throughout the production. Well, you notice it when it’s falling all around you.
And you notice it more when you’re staring straight up at the sky, wide-eyed with appreciative wonder. You notice it because the ash falls right onto your innocent eyeballs.
Even if it’s no longer hot, ash does not feel good on wide open eyeballs. And it turns out, children who are two and five years old don’t like it when ash falls on their eyeballs either.
So I spent the rest of our time at that majestic display shielding my children’s eyes from ash while blinking desperately to avoid getting an inordinately high amount in my own.
We left that show, weeping not from an overwhelming sense of patriotism, but from the intense discomfort in our eyes.
Elisa
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