My Fourth of July - A Short Memoir

by Laura Heffner

I was thinking this week while camping for vacation in northern Michigan about the upcoming holiday, Independence Day.  As one might, memories from past years comes back from childhood, the adolescence and then adulthood as a parent.  

My earliest memory of the holiday revolves around a bucket of water and sparklers lit by my maternal grandfather while my grandmother stood in the background worrying that I would poke my eye out running around with it.  He showed me how by "drawing" in the air, I could make fleeting wisps of shapes or designs in the night air.   Vague memories of being in the backseat of a ginormous Buick ooohing and ahhhing over the fireworks display that was way past my bedtime and then falling asleep with my face mashed against the hard door as it took what seemed to be an eternity to exit the parking area that hundreds of other families crowded into to enjoy the lights.

I never knew then that my grandfather had fought in World War II or what the 4th really meant.  As a kid it was about freedom which was a vague concept when your are five or six.  Little did I know the man who was lighting my sparklers and seemed to take such joy in the little things, had helped procure "freedom".  He was just the guy who secretly bought me ice cream at Friendly's when we were out on a grocery errand and his blue eyes sparkled as I had to promise not to tell Grandma.  Oh trust me, I promised.  Nothing better than ice cream.

In later childhood when we moved to the middle of nowhere Missouri and lived literally on a dirt road in a rented house from an obscure uncle who was in a nursing home and had nothing but wood stoves for heat, it was my dad, who served in the Army during the Vietnam War, that would somewhere find Roman candles to stick into the wire fencing against a fence post and shoot balls of colored light into the sky.  Again sparklers were a big thing as well.  

In my early teens, we moved to western Ohio and I really don't remember a lot about the Fourth.  A tumultuous time at home.  My parents split up and I was on my own quite a bit during those years.  Sometimes my mom would still buy sparklers but the childhood fun had lost it's appeal.  The next fireworks I really remember watching was from a pontoon boat on a local lake but it was during a festival and not the 4th.

When I had children, then the wonder and fun of celebrating the holiday returned as we loaded them into the conversion van and sat at the fairgrounds or ball field parking lot to watch fireworks, I bought the sparklers now and worried that the kids would burn themselves or poke themselves or each other in the eye.  Then I realized why my grandmother worried.  Their amazement at the lights in the sky and the big noises brought back my same childhood wonderment as well.  

Over the years as the kids have grown older, sometimes we are scattered with them at friends and such.  Some years I stay up late enough to see the fireworks and sometimes not.  But the 4th isn't about fireworks and sparklers and BBQ's.  When my grandfather passed in my mid-20's, a picture of him surfaced in his Army uniform.  Things I never knew were now of interest to me. I sat on same picnic table where my grandfather would light the sparklers for me and the enormity of my loss hit at that moment.  

Today, I have friends and family who have served and who are serving now, overseas that will not joining their families for BBQ's and fireworks.  They make great sacrifices for our ability to continue our way of life.  Maybe it is something you hear all the time, remember the troops, but really, we should.  The past and the present.  The men and women who have made certain we can light sparklers, grill burgers and watch fireworks with friends and family.  Don't for one second believe that without them, we would be able to have such freedom. They will not be spending the day with their families but off on some remote, rough location.  This fact really makes one stop and think....