Fourth of July

Fourth of July back home in Pennsylvania was celebrated with extended family. Either Grandma and Grandpa, the aunts and uncles and cousins would flock to the farm, or we would all meet at Hills Creek Lake. The standard fare of victuals was brought…potato salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon…just the basics. Oh, well, I guess there was also blueberry pie, apple pie, blackberry pie and rhubarb pie…our family was big on pie.

If we were at the lake, the kids would all go swimming while the aunts watched from the shore. The men stayed at the fire doing what men do…once in a while someone would say something and conversation would linger on that subject for a whole minute. Actually, I think my Uncle Wilbur was the talker who kept the conversation going. Uncle Wilbur was crippled from a blood disorder shortly after he returned from WWII, and he was confined to a wheelchair. He always loved the outdoors, though, and was front and center at all outdoor gatherings. I loved the smell of his cherry pipe tobacco as he puffed over an open fire.

If we happened to spend the 4th at our farm, Daddy would grill chicken, with his famous marinade sauce, on the open pit in the orchard. That gave the men more to talk about. The men would gather round the fire pit and watch Daddy turn the chicken and brush on the marinade every so often. He would pinch the meat to see if it was done. From time to time, one of the uncles would offer to brush or turn the meat and would want to learn how to test the doneness by pinching. This occupied the men’s time while the women were setting the picnic tables in the orchard and doing last minute preparations.

We kids had our own tasks to see to. If we weren’t caught by one of the aunts to run another errand up to the orchard with odds and ends, we would be in the barn or the hayfield. Daddy always left a section of loose hay in the barn so we could jump from the rafters. There were two levels to jump from—the dare level and then the double dare level. Usually someone would triple dare and climb the rope to the heavy hayfork and jump from there. We were always told to stay away from the fork, but it was usually my brother Rodney who had to prove that he was the bravest.

The hayfields were another source of fun. If Daddy hadn’t mowed yet, the cousins would play hide-and-go-seek in the tall grass. Daddy wasn’t too keen about us doing that though. He said we left too many patches of hay flattened to the ground making it hard to mow. But we seemed to forget that.

After the picnic lunch, the men would play horseshoes while the women cleared the tables and the kids played badminton or croquet. Just before the sun went down, Daddy would hitch the trailer, filled with hay, to the Cub tractor and take the kids on a hayride. We always looked forward to that. One time it was raining so hard and he drove lickety split down the road. Somehow the trailer came unhitched and we stopped dead in the road as he went even faster up the next hill. He was quite a ways down the road when he turned around and realized the trailer loaded with us kids was not following him. We laughed so hard that my cousin peed her pants, which made us laugh even harder.

After dark, the kids played with sparklers for a while…we never had any firecrackers nor did we care to go see any big firework displays. I don’t even remember if any of the little towns around us offered firework displays. We were all content to stay on the farm and finish out the night roasting marshmallows over the pit and making smores for each other or for our aunts and uncles. Grandma and Grandpa were always good sports about eating their share.

As the night got stiller and some of the younger cousins fell asleep on their parents’ laps, Grandma and Grandpa and the uncles and aunts would sit over the embers talking of the old days. Sometimes one of them would tell a whole long story of one of our ancestors who we had never known. One time, I remember Grandpa reciting one of his newly written poems…it was about the man from Mars. The talk was quieter than it had been during the day. The dying embers made you want to talk that way. I would fight to keep my eyelids open and as I got older, I could last until the last carload pulled out of the drive.

Fourth of July was a time of family and peace, knowing we were all together. Today we are spread out over the United States. My children don’t even know their cousins very well. How did that happen? Through our mobility and freedom, we have lost something…something solid that used to be the security of family.

© July 4, 2008
Judy Watters