My most memorable 4th of July.

A three day 4th O' July weekend!! The emergency rooms will be doing a nice bit of business here in the Metro. I am loathe to perpetuate stereotypes, (not really), however , I would be remiss if I didn't poke a bit of fun at a certain group of folks that are so predominant this time of year. Drunks and explosives, they go together like bread and butter, like wine and cheese, like .....well they go together, that's all I'm sayin here. So in keeping with the spirit of Spirits and blowing shit up, here is a story about my most memorable 4th ever.

I guess I was around 8 or 9, my parents were still together-ish, so I couldn't have been any older than 9. I had a Great Uncle, Bill, who lived south of the city, and every year he hosted a big bash at his place out in the sticks. Keep in mind that this would have been in the latter part of the 60's, so being SAFE didn't mean wearing a condom, or a seat belt, or any of the other definitions that we now associate with the word safe. Back then SAFE meant, look before you cross the street, and don't jump off the roof on to a mattress, shit like that. Safe also meant, don't let your 8 year old kid have more than a dozen bottle rockets at a time, and make sure you point roman candles below the shoulders of the person you were firing at. Come to think of it, I'm amazed anyone over the age of 40 managed to make it out of childhood alive.

Uncle Bills bash was pretty much standard fourth of July fare for that era. Lots of food, booze, fireworks and a couple of drunken brawls. If you are thinking my description of the event sounds like my people were all whiskey tango, white trash types, then you are under 40 or an uptight ass hat, either way, I ain't mad at ya. Now don't get me wrong, Ive got a fair number of red necked Goobers in my family tree. Lest you forget, most of my peeps come from Oklahoma. Ive got Uncles and cousins who think Noodling is a good time. Many of them think I may be gay, this assumption based on my refusal to go noodling. I'm not gay, my own dick scares me, so I'm not looking to get up close and personal with anyone who has whiskers, wife #2 would be an exception, the whiskers part, not the penis. Anyway that's another story, where was I? Right, so contrary to what my too high and too tight Wrangler wearing, Okie relatives think, refusing to noodle does not make one gay, not that there is anything wrong with that.

For those who don't know WTF noodling is, let me enlighten you. Noodling is a sport, mostly a Southern sport. You get neck deep in a lake , pond, river or creek. You use your bare hands and feet to poke around in holes in the bank in the hopes of finding a giant catfish. Hopefully you don't find a beaver or snake, or snapping turtle. If you find said catfish, you stick your hand in its gaping mouth and pull it out of the hole. The rest of the hillbillies in your group give rebel yells, laugh at you while the catfish gnaws on your arm and tries to drown you. The prerequisite uniform for noodling is cutoff jean shorts, to short and ironicaly gay-ish in appearance, and a wife beater t-shirt. About 1/3 of the family members at Uncle Bills shindig were avid noodlers and raw boned Okies.

Without fail there is always one professional drunk at these affairs , who is the self appointed safety cop/ lecturer of sober children/ fireworks tech. My uncle Sonny, Ada Oklahoma born and bred, was that guy. He had a station wagon, big fucker with the fake wood grain sides, and brand spanking new. Towards the end of the night, the grand finale was a pretty respectable fireworks display. Uncle Sonny had all of those BIG time fireworks stored in his station wagon. You can already see where this is going.

Why is it always the worst drunk in the bunch who is the most liberal with unsolicited lectures and admonitions about being safe? Uncle Sonny sat at the back of his station wagon guarding the fireworks. If you wanted some bottle rockets or black cats, you had to go through Sonny. After a drunken, breathy, semi coherent lecture, he would lean in to the wagon, and give you a measly dozen bottle rockets, thus insuring you would have to come back in a few minutes for more of his worldly advise.

If I live to be 100, I will never forget the moment it happened. Time stood still, and it is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Sonny had just doled out my 10th or 20th lecture of the day. He was leaning in the wagon to get me another measly 12 bottle rockets.

Me " Uncle Sonny, you dropped your cigarette in there"

Uncle Sonny " Blah blah, slur, blah, mumble"

So I did what any self respecting boy would do, I went on about my business. After a few minutes there was the sound of a bunch of firecrackers going off, like someone had set off one of those big 500 packs of black cats. Then there was lots of cussing, confusion, and running around. Sonny's wagon turned in to a giant wood grained fireworks display. They threw water in the back window, but it was futile. Fire extinguishers were for pussies back then, eventually even the most inebriated of the bunch retreated from the barrage of shit flying from the windows of the car. We all stood back a safe distance and watched Sonny's car go from new, to charred pile of shit. Uncle Sonny swore "one those fuckin kids dropped a punk in his car." I did something that I would do again, standing before a Grand Jury 30 years later. I took the 5th.