Before I got fat, old, grouchy, hot and impatient I used to LOVE the 4th and 24th of July. It was such an exciting holiday! I remember when we were little my Mom always dressed all of us girls alike and the patriotic holidays were no exception. I remember we would always get a some form of red/white/blue shorts outfit. I remember heavy navy blue polyester shorts that came to mid thigh and had a sewn crease down the front with a polyester sleeveless striped red/white/blue shirt. We all wore white socks with navy keds. I loved my new outfit and enjoyed prancing around. It was fun to dress alike, however she stopped around the time Gary came along as we were becoming teenagers and NO WAY were we all dressing alike. My most favorite part of the outfit was the cap gun and holster. We all LOVED the cap guns, they were so much fun to shoot. In spite of enjoying shooting everyone and everything with our cap guns, none of us became serial killers. If we didn't get a cap gun we always got caps and we would sit on the sidewalk and banging the caps with rocks and making black flash marks on the sidewalk. And worms!!! I loved those! Do you remember those? Do they still make them? They came in a box and looked like black nibs and when you lit them they would start to grow and get bigger and longer and looked like a black worm/snake.
Every year until we moved to Montana we would go to my Grandparents Moore's house and light sparklers in our fancy new duds. We would run around all hopped up on rootbeer and wave those things around till they died, then Grandfather always have a metal garbage can lin with water in it to put the used sticks in. Inevitably, every year one of my younger, stupider, siblings would touch the hot end of the sparkler and get burnt and cry. stupid kids. After that we would sometimes go to the park and watch fireworks on the lawn laying on a blanket. It was simply grand (sorry, I just watched Arrested Development for the 50th time and it makes me laugh when other Lucille says, how grand, how simply grand).
When we moved to Utah when I was a sophomore in high school we began to go the Draper parade. I remember working at Reams bakery early in the morning (5:00am) frying donuts so i could get off in time for the parade and I would ride my bike over and meet the family. Back then, when the parade started at 9:00 am you would leave your house and at 8:55 am and drive to where you wanted to sit, and by about 9:10 it was over and you went home. I really miss those days. Now, when I go to the Draper parade you need to try and save your seat like a week ahead of time and then leave at like 8:00 am to find a place to park, but you can't drive on ANY street to get there so you end up driving ten miles away and shlelpping it on foot and hope you can get a spot in the shade, which you can't. so you sit in the sun and clap like two year old at every thing that drives by, except the clowns, which i hate, which i wish i could shoot with my cap gun, which i wish had real bullets to shoot the clowns. damn clowns. You sit there and clap so your kids get candy, then you get pelted with candy hard enough to leave welts. then you scream at your kids to leave the one mashed in the horse poo alone!
But really, back when I like the 4th/24th, after the parade we would go to breakfast then have water fights in my parents back yard and they got FIERCE. I remember Gary and Jim would sneak around the corner and we would all get pelted with water balloons. Eventually it always ended with my Mom getting an enormous bucket of water dropped on on her head. There would be ambushing from all corners of the yard and house. Inevitably someones child would get accidently pelted and the wailing would begin. On the 4th we would get KFC, one time a year.
Ok I'm falling asleep now so I don't have a clue what I just wrote.
Happy St. Patrick's Day 2026
7 months ago
5 comments:
Valerie and I still love dressing in matching outfits. She in her blue terrycloth shorts, and me in my red and white checked shirt. We both have our cap guns (now with orange tips) loosely holstered around our mid-sections. If I close my eyes I can hear the ching . . . ching . . . ching of my little spurs as I walk bow-leggedly to my place to watch the parade. I holler Yeeeee Haawwww, let’s get this parade started!!! I eagerly wait for a chance to gather and then eat candy right off the road. Ahhhhh, the memories. Normally I wouldn’t eat anything that I have to dig out of a pile of horse crap . . . but this is salt water taffy wrapped in sweet alfalfa goodness. Great times for sure!
i agree with the killing the stupid clowns they scare all my feel goods away so it upsets me. the candy at the parade is usually good unless it all hard then it is just gross and hurts to be hit with.
Oh Lisa, I love it. With the exception of the matching outfits, I was right there with ya remembering the sparklers and putting them out in the garbage can lid, etc. etc. I do however, love the clowns though. Come on everyone, they are the happy, fun part of the parade. (You all just remember those old horror movies). Jacob always wanted to grow up and be a clown. No comments! Mike, I would really like to see a picture of you and Valerie dressed up this year. Please be sure to post that!!! Anyway, happy fourth ya all!!!! Lisa, will Cayden be doing the sparklers this year?
Mike, you are a freak.
Lisa, that was a really good post. It made me want to make more fun traditions like that with my kids. You have a good mom. I wish the parades were easier to go to, too. It's such a hassle now and makes it so stressful.
I'm so glad you blog and comment more often now, because I love everything you write!
I always loved the fireworks as a kid except for the fact that I was afraid one was going to come down from the sky and light me on fire. I liked watching them from a safer vantage point, through the back door (inside the house). I remember all of you older cousins telling me that my chances of lighting up were so small it was like the chance of winning the lottery or getting hit by lightening. Of course Jacob liked to take advantage of this particular day to get one up on his older sister and chase me all over the yard with the sparklers, while my Mom would dance around crazily and show how she could write her name with hers. Oh funny days...
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