Saturday, July 05, 2008 11:43 PM

It seems I have been inactive with the list for so long that I was truly amazed at the responses to my 4th of July posting!  Truly you have warmed my heart and I love YOU too!  As I reflect on the 4th of Julys of my life, it takes me back to my childhood some 80 years ago and my daddy!

I was my daddy’s girl and he found many ways to entertain this little girl. I did not like the loudness of the fire crackers and was afraid of them.  So dad would take the fire crackers and show me how to break them in half and put them in pliers so I could hold them and light them and watch them fizzle without getting burned!  Dad also got me a cap gun. I remember the red rolls of caps.  Dad showed me how to thread them into the gun. They came in a longer red roll and you would break off a small roll at a time to use.

I remember it was all I could do was pull the trigger to shoot it.   I kept the cap gun under our dinning room table.  It was a round wooden table you could put table leaves in.  Mom had several table leaves that she put in to spread the table into a long dinning room table. Many a good dinner my mother prepared for company and served on that table.  But then that is another story.

Where the table was pulled apart it made a little shelf like when you closed it. My daddy showed me how to crawl under the table and find that little hiding place and it was there that I kept my little cap gun with the rolls of caps.

Recently when the kids were clearing out things at 642 and choosing what each wanted to keep, that gun was one of the things, my youngest, Kin, wanted.  That and my little iron that I used to iron many a clothing for my family of dolls!  But that’s another story.  The more I think about that little iron, it was heavy and little; and I think it was my mother’s when she was a little girl.

Dad always had fire crackers on hand; and used them routinely to get the horses in from the pasture.  How, you might wonder.  Well my dad had some very unique ways that even my husband when we were first married had a hard time getting used to.  Even though there probably were BB guns in my day I don’t remember our having one as a child.  So I am sure it was the buck shot out of an old shotgun that stung the horses’ rumps until they learned to come in from the pasture alone.

After they were pretty well trained dad would go to out on the porch and shoot the gun up in the air and here they came tearing up the lane from the pasture.  Then at last all he had to do was go out on the porch and light a fire cracker and they would come on the run up the lane!  The lane was across the road from the cow lot and barn and dad would open the gate and bring them in.  Oh my now this tickles my memory thinking of many horse stories when I was a child.

Then there are the 4th of Julys when my boys "were really boys".  My oldest, Gary, remembers their always being bare foot and stepping on the hot sparklers accidentally; and how they would really seared the bottom of his foot!  Then I recalled the middle one, Lenney, when just a tyke trying to hold his pants up and cover his ears at the same time!

Oh there are so many stories of such wonderful memories to this old lady when she was young and a child. And I have precious newer memories also but then that is another story!

I praise my Heavenly Father for the good times and the ability to remember them.  He has taught me how to edit them, keeping the good ones and the ability for the most part to edit out the undesirable ones.  Or at least not to dwell too long on them; just the good ones!  This life if full of good and bad and will be until our Blessed Hope arrives to take us home with Him.

The older I get the more I find that it is not that important to always be "right"!  That causes too many quarrels and hard feelings!  It is so important to tell our loved ones we love them at every opportunity. God gave us our breath and He can take it away at any time!

If you are still there, thank you for listening to this old lady.  May God Bless each of you!  Addie here

 

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To Addie, May God bless you too and these wonderful stories you bring to us of times in the past. You are quite the story teller. Its such a joy and a pleasure to hear from you. Did you ever make a journal of all these wonderful stories you tell us all. that'd be wonderful to have if a member of your family. I just did a journal for my daughter of past stories, Maybe someday it will sound half as good to someone as your stories do. You have such a gift, its really special , your stories of the past and your way with words. You have brought so much to all of us. Have a wonderful day. Jane Boucher.

From Paul
This one made me think.  I remembered my dad coming home with two or three bags of fireworks.  I liked the fire crackers the best and use to put them under a soup can and watch them go way up in the air.  I also remember the roman candles.  DO you remember them?  If you don't, they were a long tube and you lit one end.  Then you pointed them up in the air and waved it in a circle.  Sparks would come and every few seconds, a little ball of fire would go up high in the sky, and, sometimes, they would explode.  I also remember "Fountains".  They were pointed cones and you lit the top.  It would spray sparks rather high and would usually end with a bang!  It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed brine back those memories.  Thanks.

Hi Paul!
 Yes, I enjoyed the 4th here. The activity director here is a special person.  He cooked hamburgers on the grill and we had big fat hamburgers with a large slice of onion, and a big slice of tomato and pickles lettuce and all the good stuff.  I piled mine so high even Dagwood would have had a problem getting his mouth over it!  We had potato chips and corn chips also.  And pop.  I had grape pop. Had not had that for a long time and it tasted good!  And to finalize the picnic on the patio, cold watermelon.

After we ate and it got dark, he had his kids here and they shot off fire works.  He moved us all out on the grass so we could look up and see the big explosions etc.  Let me tell you that's a big job, a lot of wheel chairs moving over grass and you know how easy that is!   Really neat. I really appreciated all the work he went to.

Thank you so much for sharing your memories with me.  I had forgotten some of the items you mentioned.  but as I read about them I recalled my boys when they were young.  Those were the things they enjoyed doing too.  As a spectator I did also!  On additional thing it brought to mind when I was a child, my dad bought some big sounding firecrackers and he used to put them under cans.  They sure made a loud noise and the can sure went high in the air!
Thanks much for writing. May God Bless you and yours,  Addie here

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