Grilled Burgers and Fire-works

4th of July. My favorite holiday hands down. As a kid, Dad always cooked the best burgers on the back yard grill. We'd have chips, B & M baked beans, and Mom would make the best potato salad. It was a family tradition and family reunion, with my brothers and I, well into our 20's. Then little by little, while we weren't paying attention, we parted. But until then, we'd come home and later, "filled up to here", we'd walk down to Lakeview Terrace Park for fireworks and run into many old neighborhood friends.

And so we try to recreate those days with our own traditions, it's wonderful, but it's not quite the same. Sometimes daughters come home, sometimes not. One brother is far away, another not so far but neither made it this year. However brother Bear who moved to Turtle Lake, along with his California bride and his Alaskan son made it. Very nice. To round out the family feel, we invited our friends the Bixby Bunch who brought along their two youngest children, the two older...well, getting too old I guess, perhaps beginning to search for their own traditions.

We walked together hand in hand

'cross miles and miles of golden sand

But now it's over and done

'cause that was yesterday and yesterday's gone

We had such happiness together

I can't believe it's gone forever ~(David Stuart / Wendy Kidd) Chad & Jeremy

It starts with a parade at noon. I'm disappointed they don't have as many marching bands as they used to.

I love a parade,the tramping of feet,

I love every beat I hear of a drum.

I love a parade, when I hear a band

I just want to stand and cheer as they come. ~Arden & Ohman

Rachelle and Derrick baring their soles.
Ashley and Ethan playing some kind of electronic game, we played Jarts in Robbinsdale. Remember Jarts?
Oops, forgot about Connie, but here she is. Connie gave birth to Rachelle more than two score and two years ago.
Barbara quit wearing her wig about this time. Coming in curly and thick and not all that gray.
And if your order this $50 spatula within ten minutes for only a dollar two eighty-nine, we will double the offer, you only pay shipping. (Small print: S & H $137)
Look Derrick, I can hold my hands over the coals for over a minu....aaack, yeeeowwww
Some would think this guy winking, but actually he's sleeping while craftily keeping one eye open. "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer DOS EQUIS".
Derrick looking smug because he got me to burn all the hair off my left hand.
Burgers beans and some other stuff. No I don't know why we need other stuff.
Ashley's game gets the best of her.
Walking single file on a long bridge to the boat. Believe it or not, the Bear is not the least bit embarrassed by those trousers. Thank goodness it will be dark soon. John Philip Sousa would love this guy.
Four Meuers' and a Hanson who has turned into quite a Benson aficionado. Hanson and Benson. Gotta love it. We only have one lantern because we come by sea, or is it supposed to be two if by sea? Let's see. Well, while we brush up on our American history, lets hope the bloody Brits ain't comin'.
The Houle's, that's who. Were you paying attention? Can you name them without cheating?
I wonder if that big flashlight on the deck could count as a lantern.
Alex still hungry, slurps on a spaghetti string ala Lady and the Tramp. "Boom, boom, boom. Gruff."

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! ~Rudyard Kipling

A school of Loch Bemidji Monsters. Oh my.

You can see it in their eyes,

in tender hugs and long good-byes,

a love that only moms and daughters know.

You can see it in their smiles,

through passing years and changing styles,

a friendship that continually seems to grow.

You can see it in their lives,

the joy each one of them derives,

in just knowing that the other one is there...

To care and to understand,

lend an ear or hold a hand,

and to celebrate the memories they share. ~Anonymous

Fires and fireworks get our full attention.
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck