Sunday, July 5, 2009

An Independent Nature...

This 4th of July celebration was spent well outside my city limits. I ventured west to my brother's house and enjoyed a real neighborhood celebration. It was an amazingly different experience for me. It was Urban Americana at it's surreal best.

The neighbors all had the BBQ set up with lawn chairs in place for their little neighborhood fireworks display. Cute kids ran about like fireflies. Each man of the household pulled from their own bounty of fireworks as they took turns one-upping each other with lighting the next round. Not even a slow steady rain would slow them down. It took a brave old toad hopping through their battlefield to provoke a time-out. The rain continued, but it was my brother, the one who hangs with the Mensa crowd, who got under a big black umbrella as he lit one of the ‘big ones’. My brother is not a quitter. He played his best game. I believe he won the game with this move, sadly no one noticed due to all the smoke and rain.

As I left a few hours later, I paused to take in the quiet clean air, however it was thick with the most intense sounds from the neighboring nature. Frogs, crickets and birds, all boldly celebrating independence.



(My little American sparrow drawn as vectored lineart in Illustrator - 2009)

2 comments:

Doggie said...

We took the kids to Lafayette park to see Ralph Butler. We ended up hanging out with William Stage and his new wife. Ralph asked me to sit in but I didn't. Margaret showed up and did. I lived the 4th you're talking about for 10 years. All the holidays had their rituals.

...Sharon said...

I wish you would have sat in. But I suppose you never will. Will you? You look good on stage Doggie, and perhaps you're the only one who really cares how good you sound. Besides, it would be rude to show up Ralph Butler.

Well, pretty soon you can just send your son up there in your place!