Holidays and such!

Well another 4th of July has "come and went", as the story goes. I am not too excited anymore about the "ooh" "aah" of a few fireworks! I find that I am much happier just sitting in my little home and listening to some programs with a "Patriotic?" theme than to sit for simply hours waiting for what I consider just nothing but a big waste of tax-payers money!!!! When I was younger and there were fireworks out over Coeur d' Alene Lake, it was really beautiful!!! Everyone at that time of "my" life seemed more patriotic and more down to earth! Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was a beautiful "little" town with a town park right at the edge of the water. Most of the residents walked to the Park and there wasn't people crawling all over you to find a spot to sit!!!! We usually had relatives come from the farm down in Wawawai, Washington and so our celebration started at home with the preparation of a big picnic lunch and lots of watermelon getting ice cold in a big tub of ice to finish off the picnic! We usually made it to the park at around 10:30 or 11:00 in morning and if you found a table that was to your advantage but if not, we just spread a big blanket on the grass and had our picnic there. The only thing that always did bother me were the firecrackers because the kids weren't too cautious and you could be walking around and a firecracker would go off under your feet! Of course, you screamed and yelled and usually, "Junior" got his hind end tanned right there in front of you!!!! But during the afternoon there was the local "band" that played in the little bandstand in the middle of the park, and of course, the swimming!!!! The Lake was great for that, and nobody was bothering anyone with any boats or anything! They had police that really policed the Lake and so no one even tried to get very far to shore in a boat! There was a great beach front and shallow so that anyone, kid or grown-up was able, knowing how to swim or not, to keep pretty cool in the water!!!! At dusk, the loud-speaker came on and everyone was told to get out of the water and get ready for the fireworks!!! All the show was from a big boat out on the lake and it was simply beautiful!!!! The noise from them going off, sort of got drowned out because of the water I guess!!! They usually started at 9:00 P.M. and at 10:00 P.M. everyone picked up kids, blankets and cleaned up any mess they had made on the shore and headed home! We could get to the Lake in about 20 min. from where we lived. And since so many people had walked down to the Lake and back, there wasn't such traffic jams, like there is today!!!! Night before last, on the 4th, there was a man and his son and me who had stayed home all day! So when I heard the first big "Boom" I thought, "well, I'll give it a try!" There was a couple of skyrockets that went off but barely came over the trees where we three were looking! A cold wind came up and I was sitting there for barely a few minutes and then thought "this is nuts!" so I went back in the house and finished watching the fireworks going off at the Capital in Washington, D.C. !!!!! Old age, I guess!!! Hope you all had a happy 4th of July!!! I fixed myself a sandwich and ate it and had no dessert because the sandwich filled me up and then decided that I would go to bed!!!