July 4th: A Retrospective

We had a brief but intense thunderstorm last night and more rain during the night. I woke up snuffly and opted not to go to the parade. Tom had to march, so he got all dressed up in white and blue -- Lucy had "borrowed" his red belt and took it back to Chicago -- and headed south. He left me with the list of local fireworks displays to decide what to do later.

So I stayed home with the cats -- Cassidy curled up on the middle of my bed while Sundance sat on their daybed in Tom's office and kept guard over the front yard. I reread some more of Karen Armstrong's book on Buddha, watched a little TV and generally goofed off. Although it is only a one-day break from work, it reminds me that it would be nice if every work week had a holiday in the middle. (I have gotten so lazy in my old age. Or maybe I have always been lazy and am just now willing to admit it. No comments necessary!)

Tom said the parade was a lot of fun and the crowd cheered them all along the way. He had managed to get a red belt somewhere along the way, so he was there in his true colors.

I have friends who live in Bristol, RI, not far from the Carmelite nuns in Barrington. The stripe down the middle of the main drag is painted red, white and blue because Bristol has the oldest unbroken tradition of a Fourth of July celebration in the nation -- beginning in 1785. So here's a tip of the hat to Irene and Ruth over in Bristol.

We went to the fireworks in Reedsburg again this year. It is a pretty good display, about twenty minutes' worth and they managed to sneak it in between a couple of light rain showers. We got wet, but not too bad. On the way back, we could see the finale of the display on Christmas Mountain up the road from the house and another one over in the Dells.

In 2003 I was with some friends on the Capitol lawn in DC for this. We saw the PBS broadcast of A Capitol Fourth live, with Dolly Parton as the headline act. Way cool!

But, as I told Mama, when you're in the dark, it doesn't matter if you are on the Capitol lawn or the field outside an elementary school in rural Wisconsin, fireworks are pretty much fireworks -- bright and loud and much of a muchness.