The Fourth of July.................Boze style

I got up reasonably early Sunday morning, considering the excesses of the night before. I drank a couple of cups of coffee, packed the car.............




and headed for Casey and Dianne's house in Carlock, Illinois.


Casey and Dianne's house

I dove right into preparing the ribs when I got there.........




Selecting volunteers for corn shucking..........


corn shuckin'


Me too...........

Taking the time to sample the potato salad....


I finally get to taste the potato salad..........

and play with the munchkins.......







It was an absolutely beautiful day..........breezy, sunny, not too hot or humid. You couldn't have wished for better weather. After the corn was shucked, we headed outside.......


Casey heads out the door with toys.....


We hold "fourth" outside.............


Cassie and Cheyenne


Dianne and Casey


Presiding over Munchkin Land Upon a Purple Ocean...............with Dog


Awwww...............

During the course of all this, of course, there were ribs to be tended to, beans to put in the oven, and corn to boil........(I had, of course, made the salads the night before) but I managed to take several breaks to enjoy my family and an ice cold beer or several.


The Captn takes a break

Finally, the ribs were done and the feasting was under way.......


The ribs are done.........


Requiem for a pig ...........in smoked scarlet


The feast............


The mutilation of the bounty.........


The Captn's portion

Hallie had taken a short nap, but woke up in time to join us at the table......she is not quite 11 months old and has the appetite of a lumberjack. She chowed down on turkey leg at the Olde English Faire, and she dove right into the rib meat..........


Hallie the carnivore in training........I'm so proud

After supper, we adjourned to the yard again. I managed to get Cheyenne to pose for a couple of pictures that I'm really rather proud of.........


Cheyenne posing for Papa (1)



Cheyenne poses for Papa (2)

We had about three hours to kill before the fireworks started in nearby Bloomington, and everyone, or most everyone, was in a state of post-prandial (and I've been drinking beer all day) lethargy. The exception was Cheyenne. She was running around like a monkey on speed............non-stop. Over the course of the next three hours she expended enough energy to destroy a small city. Screaming, hollering, laughing, racing around the yard............I only wish I had a digital cam-corder so I could give you some idea of how wound up she was. It led Casey to remark at one point that she was like a "psychotic Shirley Temple".......


Psychotic Shirley Temple

While Dianne stayed home with Hallie, the rest of us loaded into Casey's car and went in search of fireworks. We drove by a place where locals were lining both sides of the road sitting alongside their cars on lawn chairs. We figured they knew something that we didn't know, so we parked and waited for dark.

As it turned out, we had an excellent vantage for four separate displays........three of them were off to the sides and about 3 to 4 miles distant. The main display, however, was right in front of us and only about 3/4 of a mile away. We could see most of the ground displays and more than a few of the aerial displays arced so closely toward us that it looked like they were going to fall on us..............it couldn't have worked out better.

Cheyenne went out like a light on the way back to Casey's and never batted an eyelash during the exercise of transfering her to her Mama's car. Dianne was asleep on the couch, and Hallie had been out for hours.

That left Casey and me, sitting on the porch, drinking a last beer, passing the pipe, gazing at the stars, not saying too much,.....just two men............a father and a son........savoring the fading echoes of laughter and the still warm memories of a long and happy day with the people that we love the best.

Thus endeth the entry..........