Away and Back Again

Priscilla and I went away for the weekend to New Hampshire. Joe stayed with Max for us. Since Joe is so trustworthy, we hardly worried at all. We went to see the new Harry Potter which was okay, not as great as the reviews make it out to be, but still very entertaining. We went to a homeowners cocktail party at Waterville Estates. Great hors d'ouevres but a sucky band. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend. Our drive home was topped off by seeing an ice cream truck crashed into the guard rail on Rte. 93 south on our way home. It was on fire. I called 911 to report it. The weekend is over and now we are watching John From Cincinatti on HBO trying to make some sense of it all. Five episodes in and I don't know if I like it or not. I keep coming back to it on Sunday nights, though. It's no Sopranos, but us TV junkies have to take what we can get.

Fourth of July, 2007

The fourth of July has changed quite a bit since I was young. It was hotter then. There were more firecrackers. We got up early to stand in line at the public school to get a free Hoodsie cup ice-cream and a wooden spoon. I couldn't eat with a wooden spoon without wrapping the handle in plastic because I didn't like the touch. And the wooden sensation from the spoon on my tongue wasn't the best sensation in the world but I could tolerate it to taste the chocolate-vanilla mix of processed ice-cream that I stood in line so early for. Some kids got in line for second helpings. Others asked for two or three for their absent siblings or their dogs. Then it was on to the parade. Balloons, pop-guns and my favorite, a monkey on a stick. I got one every year. The parade was long with band after band and clowns and floats of doll carriages and flowers, war veterans and politicians, shriners and fire-eaters. The sound of the big bass drums echoed in my stomach giving me an uneasy sensation, the horns blaring loudly as the brass section passed and faded in the distance. The Revolutionary tribute soldiers shooting their blank muskets in the air always stopped directly in front of us as we seeked shelter behind our parents and blocked our ears before the blast. There were always balloons being launched prematurley into the blue sky. Afterwards, the crowd filed home carrying their chairs and armloads of cheap toys destined to not last inot the afternoon.
After a few stops along the way we made it to my aunts house overlooking the hospital hill. Weeping willows for shade, family cooking, kids running around, music and festivities all afternoon into the night when in the distance we would see the foreworks and my mother would tell the story of how she was still in the hospital on the fourth of July after I was born, and she could see the fireworks from the window in her room, wishing she was with her family at the cookout on the hill.