Independence Days in my life are like Christmases past.
Except most 4th of July holidays have involved fireworks and most Christmas days center on presents and Yuletide wrapping.
And, in my life, both holidays have overwhelmingly been about families.
A memorable Fourth for fireworks was one I shared with MaLinda and my youngest son Ben in Malibu, Calif.
MaLinda and I had gone to California to see him not long after he moved there chasing his dream to play music.
We all stayed at a friend of MaLinda’s who had a home on a hillside overlooking the Pacific.
It was a perfect setting to see the fireworks over the ocean with MaLinda in our early days together and with Ben as he began his California dream.
One of my earliest memories of Ben is when he saw, as a toddler, his first July 4th fireworks over the Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
In Jessica’s column, she mentions a Fourth celebration at Custer, South Dakota.
We were staying at a motel from the 1950s that truly hadn’t modernized.
For the kids, it was a ghastly experience, but for me it reunited long-ago memories of travel with my folks as a boy.
The town of Custer prided itself – still does – for its fireworks show.
It was truly a marathon fireworks display – long after MaLinda and her daughters had seen enough and trekked back to the mid-20th Century motel room, her son DJ and I continued watching…and watching.
I literally fell asleep watching the show. But I fall asleep watching a lot of things.
There were no oohs and ahhs from me, unless you count the snoring.
DJ was game for the whole thing.
Probably not the family-style Fourth most people enjoy, but I stayed with my brother and his family for a few Fourths in the 1960s when he was stationed at Canon Air Force Base in Clovis, N.M.
Being a teenage boy, I reveled in watching an F-100 fighter jet bear down on and strafe a mockup convoy during the base’s firepower demonstration Fourth.
I didn’t fall asleep for that.
I hope this is great 4th of July for all of our readers.
