When I was a child, our home was located on a corner lot. It seemed so BIG to me. My folks always had a vegetable garden, surrounded by flowers - sweet peas, orange tiger lilies, coxcomb, iris, zinnias and columbine.

There was a lopsided tool shed attached to the back of the garage and blue morning glories rambled across the door tumbling down to the ground. I can see it now - the sun is hot and the humidity is as high as it can be without raining. My clothes stick to my body, and sweat runs down the back of my neck and I haven't done anything yet. Bees are buzzing around the swelling purple grapes and the oozing broken pieces of Bartlett pears that have fallen from the tree. There is a giant stand of prairie grass at the corner where the garden and the grape arbor meet. We pick the young shoots, put them between our thumbs and blow them like a whistle.

The neighborhood children played in our yard, sometimes 20 at a time, of all ages. We played Mother May I, Kick the Can, Red Rover, How Much Tin Would You Like to Buy Today, Hopscotch, Jacks and Jump Rope. We made trains of our vehicles - bikes, scooters, tricycles, wagons and ourselves on skates and traveled to unknown places within the four edges of our block. My sister and I, with our friends, had tea parties with our dollies under the shade of the big maple tree in the front yard. My brothers and their friends play marbles in the dust just outside the back door where no grass would grow. There was no community swimming pool, so we spritzed each other with the garden hose, or Mom would set up the yard sprinkler so we can run through it. Her heart isn't in it though, because she heard about some children out east who became ill while swimming somewhere, so she associated summer heat and cold water with the devastating illness of polio.

But the 4th of July, undoubtedly the hottest day of the summer, except for the occasional sound of a bottle rocket, is relatively quiet. It's too hot to move! We woke up sweating and had only the breeze to cool us, but today there is no breeze. We set alight some little black pucks that stretch and curl into ashen "snakes". My brothers hit a roll of caps with a baseball bat to hear the loud pop. I sit in a patch of clover and try to find that magical four-leafed one that will ensure my fate will be lucky. I lie on my back on the dewy grass and watch the clouds scurrying past, huge cotton whales swimming across the sky. I wonder about God and where He is up there and if He can really see me.

Tonight there will be a wondrous show of fireworks at Miller Park. We will park a distance from the park and Mom and Dad will guide us to a perfect place on the grass by the swimming area. We will put down a blanket and bump elbows with everyone else in town because no one would miss this magnificent display. This is the one day of the year when I yearn for evening to come soon. The fireworks will emblazon the sky in glorious colors and there will be “oohs” and “aahs” from those gathered. They will be sung almost like a round, the north side, the east side, the south side and then the west - or maybe it's an echo. Occasionally a baby or small child will cry out of fear of the booming noise, and there will be "there, there’s" whispered among the shushing sounds.

There is a pride in the air and gratitude for the daily blessings. There is also sadness for those who were wounded and for those who died fighting the horrible war only a few years ago. And tonight they are remembered as true patriots. We sing the Star Spangled Banner. Then everyone jostles one another to get to their vehicle to make their way back home.

At home Dad gives us sparklers and lights them with a piece of "punk". We twirl them in the air and write our names and our friends' names and revel in the ecstatic spurts of colored lights. Mom says it's time for bed, and tonight we don't argue with her. The heat, the humidity, the excitement have all taken their toll. Tonight Dad will not have to use his threatening voice if we don't go to sleep right away. In our jammies, Mom comes to sprinkle us with our nightly blessing of water from her clothes-dampening bottle. She has a pleasant theory that the evaporating water will cool us as we sleep. We don't want to tell her it doesn't work and we just wake up soggier than ever. She's our Mom and this has been the 4th of July.

Happy Independence Day to you and yours!
Love and God bless