"Oh but things just ain't the same..."
The Fourth of July always reminds me of my Dad.
My first real memory of the Fourth of July was as a child of six or seven years old. I awoke to a maelstrom of activity - my parents, sister, aunt Eileen and several neighbors were bustling around in yard, loading one of my Dad's large flatbed landscaping trucks with strange odds and ends. There was a large iron kettle like the one my grandma used to render lard, a pile of chopping wood and a tree stump with an ax in it, several small trees, a couple of large rocks, and grass. Stranger still was the clothing my aunt had brought for us to wear. My sister and neighbor Marsha wore long dresses, caps and aprons, several of the neighbor boys were dressed in buckskin trousers, coarse cotton shirts and leather vests, and Mom put me into a similar get-up, plunked a Pilgrim hat on my head, and announced that we were going to participate in city's Fourth of July parade.
The theme of that year's parade was "The Pioneers of Ohio." For all the problems America faced in the 1970's - Kent State, Vietnam, the energy crisis, Watergate, recession, disco - it really was a much more rational era, where controversial subjects were not censored, and government fear-mongering was not in full-terrorism swing. I rode through the parade holding a real rifle - my Dad's Winchester. The neighbor boys, Phil and Jerry, carried rifles on the float too. The guns were not loaded, but they were real. David held an ax and stood next to the pile of chopped kindling and wood. The ax too was real. Not sharpened, but real. That certainly wouldn't fly in today's world!
Even though we were a last minute entry, our float placed 4th in the judging competition. We received a plaque and ribbon, and our float appeared in the newspaper. We were hooked.
The following year our float placed second, and the next year we placed first and received the traveling trophy. Each year the floats became more elaborate, more intricate. As soon as the theme was announced, Mom came up with ideas, and Dad turned them into reality. In 1976, our nation's bicentennial, the theme was "Freedom." Mom decided that nothing said "Freedom" quite like the Statue of Liberty, so Dad designed a frame and wrapped it in chickenwire. Mom and Eileen draped it in strips of cloth and paste until we had a very close likeness to lady Liberty, complete with lighted torch. We won grand prize and received a gigantic trophy, a large bronze plaque of the Constitution, and the traveling trophy.
Each year after the parade, everyone we knew seemed to show up at our house to celebrate. Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins, nieces, nephews, neighbors, friends and even a few strangers showed up at the party. Us kids hit the pool, raced bicycles, threw frisbees and tossed jarts, while the adults played badminton and horseshoes. Music and laughter filled the air, as my uncles brought out their Gibson's and Martin's to jam and sing the popular country and bluegrass songs of the day.
Dad manned the grill, turning out dozens of hamburgers, hot dogs and steaks, and Mom dashed around making sure everyone had enough potato salad, baked beans and corn on the cob. There was always plenty to drink - my uncles brought a never ending supply of cheap booze with them wherever they went, and the ice chests bulged with bottles of Coke and Barq's root beer and cream soda. No matter how many people turned up at our Fourth of July parties, there was always plenty to go around. My father's Appalachian roots ran deep, and he wouldn't stand for anyone to do without, therefore we always had on hand an abundance of everything anyone could possibly want.
The parties always ran into the night, which was when Dad got down to the business of fireworks. Every June Dad took my brother and me to the fireworks factory on Union Road and let us pick out $100 worth for our July 4th celebrations. There were the usual suspects, like firecrackers, bottle rockets and sparklers that we chose, but there were also massive canisters of firepower that only Dad was allowed to handle. We chose spinning Catherine's Wheels, and the oddly named "crown bloom flowers," which when lit jumped and danced across the pavement, turning from yellow to orange to red to purple. Everyone stood in a large circle in the back yard, out past the badminton nets and horseshoe pits, while Dad held court, heeding the instructions: Light Fuse and Get Away!
It was the one day of the summer that Dad didn't work, and he did his best to cram an entire summerful of excitement into that one day. He loved seeing the delight on the faces of those watching the parade, he loved providing a safe and fun environment for all us kids to swim and play, and he loved shooting the shit with his brothers, sisters and in-laws.
I stopped riding the floats when I was fifteen. As a member of the marching band, I still participated in the parade, but I left the float riding to my brother and his gang. By the mid-1980's ours was the only float left in the city parade, as companies cut expenses by eliminating their floats, and groups like the Ladies Auxiliary and the Lion's Club had stopped due to lack of funds and interest. The final straw was that even though we were the only business still creating themed floats, the judges awarded the traveling trophy to a trucking company that had draped plastic red, white and blue streamers all over the cabs. How exactly that met the theme of "In the Good Ole Summertime" we'll never know, but it infuriated my Mom to the point that she informed Dad that we would not be participating again. Dad worried about "the little fellers" who would be disappointed to stand along the parade route and not get to see an honest-to-goodness float, but Mom was adamant.
This year a new generation will be participating in the Fourth of July parade. My four-year old nephew Gunnar will be driving his battery-powered John Deere tractor through the parade, hauling his little sister in a wagon.
I wish Dad was alive to see it.