by Angelica Weathersby

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I was spending the holiday week with my daughter and her family, who lived in a big old house in Syracuse NY, when I had my best 4th of July ever. There were about 14 of us, ranging from babies up to me in my early 60s. Just being together made it a happy day for all of us. The front porch was festooned with red, white, and blue, and even the inside of the house decorated in our nation's colors.

We had a backyard cookout, nothing fancy-barbecued hot dogs, chicken, and hamburgers; potato salad, baked beans, and chips, plus a dessert concoction that was topped with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream to carry off the patriotic theme.

Their house was in a neighborhood that had seen better times, in some ways, but most of the homes remained one-family dwellings in spite of their rather grand size. There now was a nice conglomeration of various kinds of Americans living there. Our family itself included a variety of ethnic representations, including my granddaughter's Native American husband and their three little ones.

For "fireworks," we had gotten a great number of the plastic tubes that light up from a gas inside, when struck sharply against a hard object. By the time it got dark we had finished eating and we had put these colorful tubes of light (which connect at the ends to make a circle) on the children, as necklaces and bracelets, around their waists, as circlets on their hair, and even around their ankles.

They began to dance around, the bright colors flashing in the gathering dark-and then the sky began to light up with real fireworks set off by people in both directions from our house. I had been at the same place on previous celebrations of the Fourth, and had witnessed only a few "Roman candles" and sparklers. This year was different. This year it seemed as if there was a spirit of revolution in the air. The number and quality of the fireworks rivaled those at a public display as neighbors seemed to be in good-natured competition with each other, and the cries of "OOOH!" and "AAAAH!" went up and down the street with each brilliant explosion more colorful and awesome than the one before it.

Perhaps there was an element of letting off steam, of releasing the stress of the hard times at home and the tension in the world. The war in Iraq had been going on for a couple of years, and for many people in that neighborhood the difficulties of current times were likely to be followed by an uncertain and somewhat frightening future. For one glorious night, they all seemed to be saying, they were going to shake loose the grip of dread, and simply celebrate being American, whatever that was to mean in the years ahead.

Fortunately, no one got hurt-In fact, the only fireworks injuries that night, occurred at a public, legal display some miles from our street. I know how dangerous private fireworks can be, and I cannot recommend that others do what our neighborhood did that night. In spite of this, I hold this Fourth of July as the most treasured in all those of my current 66 years. The spirit of our nation was alive and well that night on Kennedy Street, and for all the cautions I must include, I am proud to have witnessed and been a part of it.

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