4th of July Round Up

First actual cook out at the new lake cabin, the old man lights the grill using boat gas...mmm good.

Same time, same place. The bottom paint on Gramp's fishing boat is peeling after 4 weeks in the water, fact is he used barn paint, pointed out by smart ass grandson who noticed it while swimming underwater near the dock and handed him a chunk of paint...

M40 goes off a foot or 2 from my hand, hand is numb, the old man's words cut through the ringing in my ears, "Be careful with those, you could blow your hand off"...

My grand parents on both sides are from the generation who dress up for cook outs and picnics, one grand father has a tie on and it's 90 degrees...they both wear hats too

A few years later...

Mom and dad have a bunch of friends at the lake for the 4th. I'm 12, Mom's best friend's daughter Ginny is 13, we ask, politely, a very drunk Bert if we can take his T-Bird for a ride, Bert says sure, we ask 5 more times...

Mom and a couple of her friends want to go for an evening boat ride, I don't check the fuel (I'm 12 for chrissakes) we run out of gas in the Flyer 3/4 of a mile from the cabin. Can't row a runabout. I go over the side grab the bowline and side stroke the boat back to the cabin while mom and her pals smoke and enjoy the evening breeze...when we get back smart ass Ginny says she's REALLY glad she did go along...Ginny's mom Betty says, "you're quite the swimmer"...

Setting off fireworks later in the evening, my little brother is running around with a sparkler, trips and burns his hand, starts wailing, shuts up when he gets a Popsicle shoved in his mouth...my young sister changes her clothes for the 10th time that day (encouraged by Ginny) gets her ass chewed by mom after she sees all the clothes on the floor of the "kid's room"...my sister weeps for a minute, promises to be good, changes her clothes again and comes out for the fireworks wearing lip stick and rouge applied by Ginny...mom gives up...

The old man likes fireworks as much as I do, I notice  he seems a little unsteady as he bends over to light them off, probably something to do with all all the Canadian Club he's been drinking since noon...our adult supervision doesn't notice that Ginny and I steal a couple of cold beers out of the cooler...we drink them under the birch trees along the driveway...

We have the old original outhouse out back in service and it's being put to good use by the men, Bert is sitting in there and my dad's best friend Bobby lights an entire pack of Black Cats, opens the door and tosses them in the privy and holds the door closed, Bert comes out more dazed than when he went in....Bert called Bobby multiple bad names, as a ex navy man he knew a lot of them....Ginny and I decide it's not a good time to ask him if we can take the T-Bird for a ride again.

Happy 4th...