happy independence day!

I recently posted this memory and posed a question on my favorite homeschooling message board, The Well-Trained Mind.

I have such fond memories of family picnics. Nothing fancy, but the stuff of smiles: a big bucket of KFC, watermelon, grapes, Grandma's perfect raspberry pie in the park. Fireworks were always a part, too (before we became a terrified society): poppers (those little things you threw on the ground), sparklers, "ground bloom flowers", and those messy snakes that started as pellets of something or other and stank when you lit them up. But ground bloom flowers were my fave because they were pink.

I got to stay up late to go see the fireworks on downtown Mercer Is., WA where I grew up (until they moved them to another day so as to not compete with the big Seattle fireworks displays). My Dad and I would wait in line for what seemed like a whole hour at Baskin & Robbins to get cones and we would bring them back to Mom and Grandma. Sousa marches and patriotic music were actually played on the radio -- the "regular" stations. If it was a super rainy 4th (which did happen - hey, it was Seattle, we would watch the National Concert live from DC, or the Boston Pops concert with Arthur Fielder on PBS. A couple of years the Kiwanis Club placed thousands of little flags overnight up and down the main road on Mercer Island (this was COOL!)...

So, how do you celebrate our Nation's Independence?