Day 151
Benjamin Franklin is my uncle. Well, more like my great-great-great uncle … somewhere on my maternal grandmother’s side.
And, I am inclined to believe, somehow, through the ages and handed down/watered down gene pool a certain amount of patriotism was passed along as well.
I could have your ordinary amount of it, but I like to think that Uncle Ben has something to do with my fondness for the flag and Jimmy Cagney.
Well, not the Jimmy Cagney of mobster films … but the Jimmy Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. The last time I saw that movie was probably 20 some years ago. Tonight I caught the last 3 minutes of it and my heart swelled and my feet tapped as he danced down the stairs and marched in the parade singing “Over There” as George M. Cohan.
That movie has always made me want to dance. I missed my chance to dance with Gene (Kelly) and Jimmy (Cagney) … rats. I was never much of a Fred (Astaire) fan … but the other two I would have moved mountains to dance with. I own tap shoes … even in this heat it makes me (almost) want to dig them out and put them on!
There are firecrackers going off around my house. I have patriotic music on so loudly that my ears are practically bleeding. Mobes hates loud noises … thunder, loud bangs, firecrackers. She is a basket case. I’ve spritzed her down in the shower (cuz my house is now 90 degrees at 11pm) and brought her up to the air-conditioned room of my office (we might just sleep on the floor!) … a sanctuary of coolness and loud music so she can’t hear the bangs and pops! Well, not most of them anyway!
There is a story that comes to mind every 4th of July … one so terribly bad that I don’t dare retell it. It wasn’t horrible, but it was something my dad did when he was a kid to another kid in his neighborhood who was mentally challenged. And though a horribly awful story, we always would end up laughing at how horrible it was. So mean and inappropriate yet innocent (somewhat) as kids sometimes just don’t know what they are doing. It reminds me of seeing a bad train wreck … you don’t want to look, but you keep your eyes fixed on it. In any case – I think of that poor kid every 4th and wonder what ever became of him?
When I was little we lived on a street that had a LOT of kids. My neighbor always put together a 4th of July parade and as kids we went all out and decorated our bikes and wagons and transformed them into horses and floats. It was great fun! Our family would come for a bar-b-que and at night we’d put the picnic benches out on the front lawn and look over the houses to the west and the fireworks that would be shot off at the school grounds behind them. We kids would roll around on the ground, “dying” from the duds (bombs) and would groan and carry on so until the adults told us to knock it off! Again, great fun!
And though I attended a family bar-b-que today … it was too hot with temps around 102 and heat index around 108. Too hot for this gal who is not used to this humidity yet. All the dogs were sick last night and none of us fell asleep until nearly 5:30 am (that was after one of them threw up on me) … so, we are all tired and more than a bit frazzled from the heat.
I am hoping some channel has fireworks on. I’ll spritz everyone down with some water, gather us all on the couch and watch some fireworks in honor of our nation and the people who built it and maybe roll around dying from the duds for old time’s sake. I think our forefathers had a lot of guts. More than I would ever have.
Kudos to them … including Uncle Ben.