The 4th

Normally the Fourth of July means that I would be going to see fireworks with my family and going to a family pig roast. This year however I am in Philadelphia, the home of freedom. I forgot until yesterday, when I was riding my bike past the art museum with all the tents and things, that Philadelphia is kind of where our country was born. For a country girl, who is used to fireworks being done at the elementary school and that really being the extent of the celebration, a whole week of events and activities leading up to the fourth is rather odd to me.

Of course what is making it worse is that I miss my family.

The fourth means six plus people: parents kids, and sometimes grandparents, carrying blankets, folding chairs, and cans of bug spray across the soccer Fields to find an empty piece of grass. Blanket unfurl, my brothers pull out game boys or start begging for money to buy 'stuff' (the parents rarely give in). Dogs park and kids scream, while a mass of people sit waiting for the sky to darken, praying the rain will hold off.

Than the 30min warning goes up with a pop and the faintest of whooshes, which ends in a boom rocking the hills around our small village. I know at home our dog will be hiding scared. Those 30minutes pass so slowly. The stars slowly show up, the trees around the baseball diamond, where they set off the fireworks, blacken and create a kind of wall. Men walk around checking the lines and talking to the fireman. My sister and I get in a argument about nothing in particular. Everyone stops really paying attention, although my brother starts to ask the time ever minute or so. My parents are having a conversation with friends from church.

Suddenly through the noise, everyone hears the first pop. The people laying on the blankets around my family hush, as if they could over power the fireworks. The first sparkling shower opens in the sky and the crowd break out in 'cool', 'wow', and 'that was a nice one'. My brothers annoyingly start saying 'ooh', 'ahhhh' after each one, in a rather sarcastic voice, that my mother says is all my fault. My Dad tells them to be quiet.

After a while there is a big finale, which depending on the year can be slightly lame, and than my family packs up quickly, and rushes to try and beat the crowd, who all have the same idea. My brothers start arguing, lugging chairs that seemed so lite when we first arrived, but are now too heavy. Some how through the mess of cars and people we make it out of town and drive the almost empty country roads towards home. Over the hills we can see the flashing lights of another villages fireworks coming to an end.

At home we unpack the car and reassure the nervous dog that we are OK. My parents make my brothers go off to bed, and my sister and I stay up talking. Sometime later we go off to bed and fall asleep in the darkness. The fourth having come to an end.