Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th to all of you! The 4th is quickly becoming one of our favorite holidays. Some of the activities:

- Last night, a few of the neighborhood families got together and watched fireworks from a vacant lot in the neighborhood. The best thing is that the boys are old enough now to run around independently and play by themselves, leaving the adults alone to drink their liquor.

And the "oohs" and "aahs" from 5-year-olds as they see fireworks are priceless.

- Today we went to a township 4th-of-July parade. The police, firemen, ambulances, Cub Scouts, church groups, etc etc etc all parade through a neighborhood. The real highlight is that they threw out candy! When did the 4th become a summer Halloween? We've now got enough candy for the rest of the month.

- A lot of patriotic music was played, but the one that always gets me is Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud To Be An American". This song always gives me the chills. Why? This song was always played in the old Cleveland Browns stadium at about 12:45, about 10 minutes before the national anthem. Being in the stadium at that time (usually in the Dawg Pound, or in the $19 seats that were three rows behind the first base dugout - unfortunately, this was a football game, and that meant we were at ground level about 40 yards behind the West goal post), hearing that song play gave us a blessed feeling of:

- anticipation (the game's about to begin)
- community spirit (fans old and young, sober and drunk, all singing at the top of their lungs)
- and, of course, patriotism (many, MANY veterans in the Dawg Pound and cheap seats in those days)

Whenever I hear that song, it takes me back to those games at the "House of Thrills". I loved that old stadium.


- And this afternoon, we will take a journey to the race track. Nothing screams "American" than taking your two preschools sons to a race track.