Having an all-American Fourth of July
I know it’s the 5th of July, which has little meaning other than being
Saturday this year, but I don’t think I’ve bored you with ... uh, shared
reminisces of 4ths of July past recently. At least not in 2014.
When I was a youngster, the 4th of July always was the unofficial halfway mark of summer, even though in those days school had been out more than a month and school didn’t start again until after Labor Day. But it had that halfway feel to it. (My birthday at the end of August always marked the close of summer for me.)
Sometimes the 4th of July came during our family vacation, which usually meant we were somewhere in Arkansas, either at Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Robert’s down in Augusta, or twisting through the hills between Ozark and Eureka Springs. Vacations usually were either go somewhere to visit or road trips. Other times, the 4th was spent at home with cookouts and our own fireworks shows.
Dad was good with a grill, which back then always was a charcoal grill. One summer, he cut the bottom portion off a water heater, added a grill and a propane tank and made an outdoor cooker. When he fired it up that usually meant a fish fry. Around our place, a fish fry meant catfish, although I seem to recall him frying up some shrimp a time or two as well.
Back to the charcoal grill, Dad would fire up the charcoal, get it good and hot, then cover the grill portion with foil, punch holes in it to let grease run through and smoke to rise through. If the coals flared up from the grease, the flame didn’t burn the burgers or steaks. But the burgers, hot links and steaks, and sometimes chicken, still got that charcoal-grilled flavor. He’d sometimes put barbecue sauce on the burgers as they cooked. Talk about good eating.
My Uncle Ben did that, too, but even though what he grilled was good, I still thought Dad’s was a tad better. Once, Dad bought a roll of pork sausage, wrapped it in foil, poked a few holes in the foil and put it on a covered grill to make homemade smoked sausage. He always used hickory for something like that. When sliced later and cooked for breakfast, that was some of the best sausage I remember eating.
Anyway, cookouts often were a part of our 4th of July celebration. Occasionally there’d be homemade ice cream for dessert, but more often than not we had early-season watermelon and cantaloupe. Those were the days when Mom and Aunt Maggie would take us kids with them to get melons during the week.
Melons would be picked fresh from a sandy East Texas field, and usually one or two didn’t make it out of the field. It’s amazing how fragile those watermelons were. Why, they’d almost crack open at the touch, especially when touched by the ground after falling a few inches from one’s grasp. Naturally, you can’t just leave a broken watermelon in the field and waste it, so we young’uns would dig in with our grubby hands and feast on it. It’s amazing how those accidents always happened.
Cookouts pretty much were potluck affairs with those coming bringing along a covered dish or two. Aunt Johnnie made great baked beans topped with bacon, Mom made the best potato salad, and others would bring all the rest of the trimmings, much of which was fresh from a garden or roadside stand.
A cookout would start about mid- or late afternoon, followed by a digestion period, except for the youngsters. Popping firecrackers and bottle rockets commenced with the older kids using lit cigarettes from parents to light the fireworks. They weren’t so expensive then and worked better than the punks for lighting fuses. And people wondered why so many of my generation smoked later on.
As it got darker, the more colorful fireworks came out — rockets, Roman candles, sparklers — and louder ones, too, — cherry bombs, which supposedly were illegal in Texas, or so the story I remember went. The sky lit up and the ground was covered with miniature explosions. Firing off a whole string of Black Cats always was fun and sent folks scurrying. (For a while, Dad — a Korean veteran — wasn’t too thrilled with fireworks for a few years, but ultimately he was the one buying the most.)
By the end of the 4th of July, everybody was stuffed, tired and satisfied with our own celebration of Independence Day. We’d eaten well and blown up stuff, shared fellowship and enjoyed life. What could be any more American than that?
When I was a youngster, the 4th of July always was the unofficial halfway mark of summer, even though in those days school had been out more than a month and school didn’t start again until after Labor Day. But it had that halfway feel to it. (My birthday at the end of August always marked the close of summer for me.)
Sometimes the 4th of July came during our family vacation, which usually meant we were somewhere in Arkansas, either at Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Robert’s down in Augusta, or twisting through the hills between Ozark and Eureka Springs. Vacations usually were either go somewhere to visit or road trips. Other times, the 4th was spent at home with cookouts and our own fireworks shows.
Dad was good with a grill, which back then always was a charcoal grill. One summer, he cut the bottom portion off a water heater, added a grill and a propane tank and made an outdoor cooker. When he fired it up that usually meant a fish fry. Around our place, a fish fry meant catfish, although I seem to recall him frying up some shrimp a time or two as well.
Back to the charcoal grill, Dad would fire up the charcoal, get it good and hot, then cover the grill portion with foil, punch holes in it to let grease run through and smoke to rise through. If the coals flared up from the grease, the flame didn’t burn the burgers or steaks. But the burgers, hot links and steaks, and sometimes chicken, still got that charcoal-grilled flavor. He’d sometimes put barbecue sauce on the burgers as they cooked. Talk about good eating.
My Uncle Ben did that, too, but even though what he grilled was good, I still thought Dad’s was a tad better. Once, Dad bought a roll of pork sausage, wrapped it in foil, poked a few holes in the foil and put it on a covered grill to make homemade smoked sausage. He always used hickory for something like that. When sliced later and cooked for breakfast, that was some of the best sausage I remember eating.
Anyway, cookouts often were a part of our 4th of July celebration. Occasionally there’d be homemade ice cream for dessert, but more often than not we had early-season watermelon and cantaloupe. Those were the days when Mom and Aunt Maggie would take us kids with them to get melons during the week.
Melons would be picked fresh from a sandy East Texas field, and usually one or two didn’t make it out of the field. It’s amazing how fragile those watermelons were. Why, they’d almost crack open at the touch, especially when touched by the ground after falling a few inches from one’s grasp. Naturally, you can’t just leave a broken watermelon in the field and waste it, so we young’uns would dig in with our grubby hands and feast on it. It’s amazing how those accidents always happened.
Cookouts pretty much were potluck affairs with those coming bringing along a covered dish or two. Aunt Johnnie made great baked beans topped with bacon, Mom made the best potato salad, and others would bring all the rest of the trimmings, much of which was fresh from a garden or roadside stand.
A cookout would start about mid- or late afternoon, followed by a digestion period, except for the youngsters. Popping firecrackers and bottle rockets commenced with the older kids using lit cigarettes from parents to light the fireworks. They weren’t so expensive then and worked better than the punks for lighting fuses. And people wondered why so many of my generation smoked later on.
As it got darker, the more colorful fireworks came out — rockets, Roman candles, sparklers — and louder ones, too, — cherry bombs, which supposedly were illegal in Texas, or so the story I remember went. The sky lit up and the ground was covered with miniature explosions. Firing off a whole string of Black Cats always was fun and sent folks scurrying. (For a while, Dad — a Korean veteran — wasn’t too thrilled with fireworks for a few years, but ultimately he was the one buying the most.)
By the end of the 4th of July, everybody was stuffed, tired and satisfied with our own celebration of Independence Day. We’d eaten well and blown up stuff, shared fellowship and enjoyed life. What could be any more American than that?
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