Fourth of July--Part I

It has been one rainy, drizzly few weeks up here. And I am NOT complaining one bit. The tourists may complain. They may get fogged in. They might not have the best picture views because of low lying clouds. They may be cold and wet....but then packing a raincoat might have been a good idea. But I am LOVING it. It is not Phoenix. It is not 110 degrees. No complaints here.

Two years ago we spent the summer in Meeker, CO....another summer that I very much enjoyed. Small town life is just so very different from life in suburban sprawl. So before I extol the virtues of a holiday in small town life, let's have a moment of silence for the folks in the small Iowa town where the horses went nuts during the July 4th parade and injured several and killed one person. Not a good way to have a small town holiday.

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Did you take that moment? Good. Now it's on to how the 4th is celebrated up here. No horses will be harmed in the following story. In fact, there were no horses in the parade. The band was a group of Highlander pipers/drummers from Whitehorse, YT. That's right. The band. But I get ahead of myself.

My cold continues to linger on and I've hit the two week mark. Hopefully this is a corner towards good health that I see up ahead. So, I did not choose to spend much time outdoors watching Mike and the softball team. I went once when Mike wasn't playing and we only lost by 1 run. This past Monday we lost 14-0. I stayed in...it was still raining/drizzling and I still felt yucky.

With all the rain, there were rumors on Saturday that the July 3 fireworks were going to be cancelled. My co-worker said that's what she heard on the radio station ("the" radio station). However, they were cancelled in JUNEAU...not here. Also on July 3 was a company barbeque. They supplied and cooked all the meat. The rest was potluck. And was it a hoot.

It was held at the White House, one of the housing options for employees. They have a yard, volleyball net and firepit. A good time was had by all. It's interesting to make potluck stuff in the communal kitchen. It's then how you realize how many bowls, serving spoons, etc. you don't have. So, I stuck with the easy and went with ambrosia salad in a throwaway aluminum foil baking dish. Easy! And with this crowd, you can make something yucky...if it's homemade it will be eaten.

The drizzle was on and off all evening. Volleyball was on and off until it went off when the ball rolled into the street and was FLATTENED with a big ker-POW by a passing RV. Talk about funny. That was about one of the time one of the drunker participants tossed a beer bottle into the street...near our left rear wheel. Not so funny. A clean-up of shards prevented any tire mishaps...and we moved the pickup after that.

So we headed down to the fireworks. There were several of us heading down the street, one of whom was my fabulous co-worker, Nathan. Helen Keller might not guess that Nathan is gay, but she probably could figure it out, too. You gotta love Nathan because he is unabashedly who he is and that's how it should be. He lives in Orlando and has an Orlando sensibility.


So when two drunken yahoos called him a faggot, he gave them a "F--k you" back. Then began the jeering from the yahoos that went on and on, louder and louder from up to two blocks away. The group of us just kept walking towards the Red Onion where there had been dancing in the streets planned. (Street dancing cancelled due to weather and 3 of our group are under 21...so no entering the RO.) The yahoos kept jeering.

As we were standing on the corner deciding our next place to go, the yahoos arrived...continuing to jeer. My wonderful hero husband Mike told them to go pick on someone their own size. At this time, they shoved him and told him to mind his own business. You. Don't. Shove. Mike. I didn't see the shove, the next thing I saw was Mike turning to me as he said, "Shari, hold my glasses." And he got that puffed up look. My next words: "Michael. Michael!" Two other people saw the beginnings of trouble and hustled the two yahoos out of there. Good move.

Hate crimes continue to exist. There's is everything to being said about being who you are. There is also a lot to be said for watching your step:

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger

In other words, you do watch yourself in certain neighborhoods and with certain crowds. Nathan is just getting that it isn't necessarily the best choice to mouth off to yahoos. So, Mike was ready to fight for Nathan's honor. Was quite the item of gossip for a day or two.

On to the fireworks. There was great discussion on which dock would be the best to view the display. We chose Broadway dock because it was shortest and easiest. It wasn't necessarily the best. The ferry was in, so the low fireworks towards the east were below our view, but the high eastern ones were visible...also the low central canal ones. The best part of the fireworks was the reverberating noise off the surrounding mountains. Now THAT was cool. The off-key national anthem being sung by drunk young people around us...not so cool to me, though Mike liked that.

And that's that for now because I'm blogging during some down time at work and I just got an "up time" task to do. More to come.......