Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everybody.

This is definitely one of my favorite holidays of the year. It’s a time when the burgers are cooking, the weather is nice and everyone is happy for the most part.

I remember my early 4th of July celebrations back in New York. My mother and I would head out to a family member’s home and have an excellent barbeque meal. Burgers, hot dogs, fries, salads, punch and of course, pie. The older family members would have their liquor and just talk smack all day. The younger family members like me would just play a sport or just talk about the latest happenings in our schools. Music would be playing loudly and everyone would just have a good time.

We would talk about sports, especially how the Mets were ruining their season. That’s always a central theme of the discussions. The Mets always find a way to screw up their season around this time of year and my uncles and I would discuss this greatly.

Finally, I would head home, finish off some leftover food and head outside and watch the Macy’s fireworks show. I lived near the Williamsburg Bridge which went over the East River, the center of the show. People would line up for hours in Manhattan to get a prime view of the show while I would just stand outside my apartment in Brooklyn right before the event and get a grand view.

The only sad part about this memory now is that the fireworks would be set against a background which consisted of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. Obviously since 2001, this view is non-existent. But that doesn’t damper my positive memories of the NYC this time of year.

The holiday also brought out the freaks in NYC. I would hear shouting and fireworks going off until 3 a.m. every year. A gun shot or two was also not uncommon. Crime also went up. This is New York I’m talking about, would you expect anything less? Ah, illegal guns. The memories.

When I started spending more time in Georgia during this holiday, it was about heading to Stone Mountain for the laser show! Loved the lasers!

The holiday is really about celebrating our independence as a nation. I know that we have major issues in this country, too numerous to list. However, for one day, we can look back at the history of this great nation and realize how fortunate each of us is.

BTW, props to my international readers as well. I’ll celebrate your independence days as well.

Anyway, enjoy the festivities tomorrow. Be safe and stay off them streets!

I’ll probably be home just relaxing since I’m not going to head to Atlanta or NYC this year.

Of course I have to go with God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood. Is there any doubt?

Family

What’s going on everybody? I was just in South Carolina for the past few days attending my great-grandmother’s funeral. She died at 98 years old, lived a great life and the funeral was a great tribute to her. I’ll get into more thoughts about the funeral in my Sunday reflections for this week.

For now, I’ll discuss one positive aspect of attending the funeral, meeting up with some family members that I hadn’t gotten in touch with in years.

Since I moved out of the NYC in 1999, I haven’t been up there in a long time. I can only remember one or two occasions when I’ve been up there. The result of that is that I’ve lost touch with a lot of family members there like some uncles, aunts and my grandfather. However, everyone came down to Estill, S.C. for the funeral, so I got to see them, which was big since I haven’t seen some of them in nearly ten years.

And there were two cousins that I haven’t seen in even longer. One of them lives in Tampa and she was my road dog back in the day. I used to kick it with her all the time as a kid, but we lost touch. I was so happy to see her. The other one actually works in sports media, which is cool because I work in sports as well. He’s actually going to Wimbledon, lucky SOB.

I also got to hear so many stories about my family and learn more about everybody, including my parents.

The funeral also brought me to Estill, S.C., which is the epitome of a small southern town. People call cities like Macon, Ga. or Chattanooga, Tenn. small, but those are nothing compared to Estill. There are literally only about twenty stores in the entire city. It’s also a city that you can tell is struggling financially and has a high poverty level. I can understand why people want to move out of there, but I can comprehend why people would want to stay there too. It’s their home.

But that’s where my roots are so I have to respect it. I think it’s good for all of us to go back to where our families have started to gain prospective of the current life. The visit confirmed the unity that we share as a family.

I’ve been a hermit in relation to family relationships the past few years, but that needs to change because the older members of my family are going to pass away at some point and it will be up to me and the other kids in my generation to continue our strong family tradition.

I just need to attend more family reunions and keep great-grandma’s legacy moving.