My not so interesting crazy life

Part one: The American Independence Day

I wouldn't call myself a patriot. As a matter of fact i never even knew the pledge of alligence growing up and the first time i heard it i got scared because i thought that all the kids were part of some kind of cult or something. But thats probably for another time. Even though i wouldn't call myself a great american citizen I've always loved Fourth of July. Always celebrated it at great grandma and grandpas house, we'd invite family over and have cookouts. I spent every Independence Day there out in the country there have only been four times in my life when i have not but now i doubt we ever will again. My grandma lost her battle with cancer on Dec.19 and it don't quite feel right to walk through those gates and start laughing and carrying on like she isn't there to scold the little ones for playing rough or hold the newest baby boy or girl of the family and instruct me on how to make the best potato salad. On these four occasions that i missed such big events the first was three years ago i suppose: i went to my aunts instead to her lake house and we shot them off there it was quite a show really. The second time was when I went to Europe two years ago. I was a student ambassador so i was in Italy we spent that one on a charter bus in Rome playing any song with America in it. That is until the driver figured out that America was the same as Americana in english. In which case he made us turn it off he didn't like Americans apparently. The third time which i guess makes a liar out of me there have only been three times when i have missed grandma and grandpas Fourth of July. Was this year. And i guess this is where my story really begins also. We went to Talequah which is a city in Eastern Oklahoma and we were with my aunt Gina and uncle buddy and all their friends and my cousin Whitney and all her kiddos too. We kayaked and swam down in the Illinois river and it was a really good time. My aunt has a thing for big boom i guess you could say she bought all the fireworks she had bought a bunch of hardly legal fireworks. On the third we shot off what she called the "little ones". Even those so called little ones were able to draw a big crowd but only after they moved the dead body away. A girl had gotten drunk and fell into the river and drowned before we got to the docks, or so that was the the assumption. Anyways, so theres this large crowd and more people bring out the fireworks. If i think really hard i can still feel the shrapnel raining down like black gravelly snow. One problem though drunk people plus fireworks plus crowds don't mix . Only one person ended up getting hurt that night a group of boys had been lighting off firecrackers and one popped very close to girls ear. After that we called it quits till the next day. The next day July the fourth we went down the river again. I was actually proud of myself for having been able to kayak after only having done it one other time. Turns out I'm decent at it. Anywhere you looked going down this river for twelve miles there was the four b's ; beer,beer,boobs,beer. Anywhere you looked the riverbanks were packed with people. If you looked beside you you could see dozens of rafts sometimes six tied together at a time. These rafts carried not only their drunken passengers but weed, beer,vodka,whiskey,fireworks,you name it. I think my favorite part of our nice long journey down the river was how stoked everybody was. Of course unlike back in the fifties the feeling of American spirit has been replaced with all sorts of parifananailia. But what i liked best was that if anybody and i mean anybody heard even as much as A WHISPER OF THE WORD USA. AMERICA. OR even a good old fashioned 'murica the entire river would erupt with shouts and whoops and hollers of GO USA! GOD BLESS AMERICA! GOD BLESS AMERICA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA! 'MURICA! I heard it all. Later that night after we had finally reached our campsite we decided to start shooting off the big ones. Again we drew a nice big crowd, but theres something unsettling about having so many other people who are not only drunk and high but are wielding flaming sticks being near highly dangerous fireworks that actually needed to be mounted to the ground not only this but these highly dangerous explosives just so happened to be under the tailgate i was sitting on. After a few close calls and shrapnel rain we ran put of big boom and decided to call it a night. However , there were around four hundred people on that dock. And a big truck filled with my crazy family shall not pass. My grandpa honked the horn as loud as he could but nobody moved! So he VERY slowly moved forward and leaned on his horn. Thats when things got a little intense. They surrounded the truck, yelling and shouting and banging on windows. My grandpa tried to tell them "hey you get out of the way!" But they only surrounded us closer. My mom rolled down the window and i remember thinking that if anyone gets out the truck its gonna be one hell of a fucking fight . I looked to the trunk of the truck; my uncle who had to be at least six feet tall was holding back my easily irritated aunt trying to keep a fight from starting. I remember in that moment i looked in the floorboards to find something heavy but to my relief security had shown up and parted the crowds. We were safe or should i say the crowd was safe. The next morning we broke camp and left taking a quick road trip down memory lane with my grandpa and back to my somewhat boring life at home. It wasn't that way for long but THAT is for another chapter. ;)