Happy Fourth of July!!!

The Fourth of July is full of sweet memories.

For the longest time, the Fourth of July meant one thing  -  going to my great aunt's place on a lake in southern Indiana.  That was my favorite day of the summer.  Mom would have made a chocolate fudge Bundt cake, deviled eggs, and a big dish of baked beans (Boston style).  We'd load up air mattresses, inner tubes, swimsuits, and fishing poles, and drive south down a US highway, turn onto a state road, turn onto a county road at an old one-room schoolhouse, skirt a tiny town, turn onto a gravel road at a small country store, then turn onto an unpaved lane that ended at Mac's Shack. 

That's what my great aunt and uncle called it.  It wasn't much - a perfect square of concrete block with a shallow hip roof painted green.  It had two big multipaned windows flanking the front jalousied door.  There was no air conditioning - just open all the windows!  There were a tiny sink, refrigerator, oven, and stovetop in the kitchen alongside a relatively fancy antique Hoosier cabinet.  There were convertible sofas in the main room, and a tiny bathroom in the back.  The exterior concrete block walls needed mortar repairs - you could see light through some of the cracks.  The furniture was the kind perfect for the lake - it didn't matter if you sat on it in your wet swimsuit.  There was no furnace - just a stone fireplace with heat exchangers my great uncle had designed when he built the Shack. 

Here's how my day would go once we arrived:

I'd carry our gear from the car to the Shack, greet all the guests, hug my aunt, then walk the few yards to the lake.  When I say the Shack was on the lake, I don't mean NEAR the lake - I mean ON the lake.  You could stand in the doorway and cast into the lake.  Of course, if you did, your line would end up in a jungle of cattails, but it would be in the water!  I'd check out the tadpole situation.  We always took our cups after lunch and used them to catch tadpoles. 

The main event was FOOD!  Always hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad, pickles, deviled eggs, watermelon, and whatever else people felt like bringing.  It was a FEAST, always.  Nothing fancy, just plain old picnic food, and lots of it!

The rest of the day we'd take turns going for rides in the rowboat.  We'd "swim," which meant floating around on air mattresses and inner tubes in the middle of the lake.  The lake was small and didn't allow anything with more power than a trolling motor, so there was no danger of being run down by a maniac in a speedboat.  We'd walk down to the little store down the road and buy bait worms.  We'd fish for bluegill and sunfish and release whatever poor fishies we caught. 

As evening approached, we'd eat again, whatever was left from the original feast, then break out the sparklers, firecrackers, snakes, and bottle rockets.  My great aunt would launch her version of a chinese lantern - a sheet of newspaper with the four corners pinned together to make a balloon.  She'd set one on the ground, pinned corners down, then light the four points of the balloon with a match.  The balloon would fill with hot air and lift off the ground, sailing high into the air over the lake.  When the paper was consumed, the pin would fall into the lake with a soft hiss. 

The climax of the evening was the community fireworks shot off the dam.  We'd gather lawn chairs and line them up facing the lake.  Red flares lit the dam from end to end.  When the last flare burned out, the show began!  We'd ooh and aah with the best of them, and cheer after the grand finale.  We could hear everybody else cheering across the water. 

The day ended, we'd load up the car and head home, sunburned, happy, exhausted, and ready to collapse into bed.  What could be better?

That's my ideal Fourth. What's YOURS?