Below is an article originally published in the Marcellus Observer, I obtained it from the writer Ann Ferro as it can not be found on the web anywhere. Here is the original article for your reading pleasure…

- When we were kids we celebrated the Fourth of July in the back yard of my grandmother’s bungalow in Carmel. It was a simple affair, casually done around a a pile of stones that served as a fireplace and an old 1935 Ford that died after a trip down from my Aunt Lucy’s who lived in Cocksakie. The black Ford sat there, gathering moss, mold and a hefty collection of spider webs and their ominous architects. My mother had set rows of potted geraniums as guards along each running boards in order to dissuade her curious children from trying to enter the derelict vehicle. How can I say this? OK … You would never find a picture of this yard in any country magazine. I am not saying that back yard was less than chic, but it had a certain Appalachian joie de vivre and we loved it. My mother was less enthusiastic.

We would toast marshmallows, drink home made root beer and watch my father put on a fireworks display with background “music” provided by my mother who was sure that someone was going to lose a body part. Each year we heard stories of someone we knew or someone that she had read about in the Daily News who was disfigured by fireworks, and, if they were lucky, facing life with only one of something that ordinarily came in pairs. I don’t think anyone ever mentioned Thomas Jefferson, although they should have.

This year, after years of not doing too much and thinking about what the anniversary of our country’s Independence means, we will find something more appropriate to do. Given things as they are, this is the year to celebrate some of the good things that we have … like each other, friends and family, a stable internet connection, enough gas to get out to camp and back, etc. (more…)

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