A few passing clouds. Low 64F. Winds light and variable..
A few passing clouds. Low 64F. Winds light and variable.
All these fireworks promise fun and excitement as everyone celebrates the nation’s birthday on July 4.
All these fireworks promise fun and excitement as everyone celebrates the nation’s birthday on July 4.
When I was a kid, there were two days on the year that I really looked forward to were: Christmas and the Fourth of July. The long build-up to Christmas took several weeks, but when Christmas came, it never disappointed. There was family, church service, great food, and presents in the town I grew up in, Garden Grove, California.
My grandparents would fly out to stay for several weeks and that meant there would be daily shopping and nightly card games like Po-Ke-No and Tripoli.
That two weeks was the most fulfilling time of the year, but it didn’t come close to the adrenalin pumping Fourth of July celebration.
It meant that I could ride down with my dad to the local fireworks stand and pick out what we wanted to blow-off that night. There was something about walking around all those thousands of gaudy cones, geysers and pinwheels that reached into a 10-year-old boy’s nirvana like no other could. Whatever your selection, there had to be at least two “Piccolo Pete’s” and one “Smoky Joe” included. The “Smoky Joe” put out enough smoke to cloud half our cul-de-sac for a good ten minutes. “Pete’s” piercing whistle was about 100 times louder than a tea kettle at a rolling boil and most girls couldn’t take it.
Both were vital to my level of expectations.
Though only one day, the Fourth of July was not without its own rituals.
My mom, Bobbye, would get up early and assemble her homemade ice cream recipe on her little stove there in our GI Bill kitchen. There were fresh eggs, whole milk, condensed milk, vanilla bean, sugar, and whatever fresh fruits were in season.
Since we lived in the Strawberry Capitol of the World, it was usually that flavor, but California peaches were in around July, so we had peach ice cream!
I was assigned the tending of our old white ice cream maker that featured a tired electric motor that turned the steel canister inside the crushed ice and rock salt. It was always hot during July, so the ice melting was a problem, but I stayed close by, making sure the ice level was stayed at the top.
Also, out there on the back patio was my dad, George, who oversaw the cooking of the giant fresh turkey he had in his trusty barbecue grill. He had it all down pat and used a slow turning rotisserie that somehow held that big bird steady.
He would take a small paint brush and after it had been on for an hour, start slathering Chris and Pitts barbecue sauce ( a California favorite) all over the turkey. When the turkey skin and the sauce started caramelizing from the heat, the delicious aroma permeated the neighborhood for blocks.
This was around 1956 so there wasn’t much sophistication in outdoor grilling, and anything done on a rotisserie was a rare treat.
So, these two preparation tasks were coordinated with the Cole slaw and potato salad production by Bobbye and were scheduled to be ready by about 6 p.m.
My way of enjoying the juicy turkey was to slice off a couple of thick slabs of the warm turkey breast, take a strip of the caramelized skin and put it between two slices of Wonder Bread. Then, add a spoonful of mom’s vinegary Cole slaw, spread it around and dig in. What an awesome holiday treat that was!
When all the snacking and eating were finished, it was time for the pre-fireworks briefing. That would be myself going through my “safe and sane” ordnance cache and deciding which ones I would be firing off and in what order. I could be my own gunnery sergeant there on Candy Lane and I felt like a big shot doing it.
Our next-door neighbor, Warren, was a masonry contractor and provided a hand stacked cinder block firing range on our front driveways, which were parallel. He always had a huge supply of fireworks, various cherry bombs, and firecrackers, himself and liked playing “kid.” We lived 90 miles to the Mexican border and 45 miles to Chinatown in LA so “things that went boom” were easily accessible. Warren was always loaded with his own firepower.
Excitement would build and right around dusk, our street was ready, and all our neighbors would be sitting out on the curb yelling encouragement and applauding. These were families of WWll veterans and grateful to be celebrating the Fourth of July in peaceful times as the Korean War had ended several years before.
It would take a good hour to set off our collective fireworks and clean up the mess, especially those “glow worm snakes” that left long ashes blowing everywhere. There was reason to get done by 9 p.m. because that’s when nearby Disneyland (two miles away) would be shooting off their MacDaddy fireworks that dwarfed our little show.
We kids loved to get on our rooftops and watch what Uncle Walt had to shoot up in the Anaheim sky for a holiday grand finale. It was always spectacular and we would sit in the lawn chairs we had dragged up there and go “wow” and “no way!,” watching those skyrockets soar and explode.
After that show, the only thing left to do was return for a second dish of peach ice cream, ginger snaps, and to watch some local TV if either Gunsmoke or the Rifleman was on. Possibly make a nice big tumbler of orange Kool-Aid to quench the thirst and another full day in paradise was now in the books.
California was a paradise back then and those Fourth of July’s were a special memory. Living in your past doesn’t hurt if it makes you happy and it does. I do it all the time.
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