July 4, 2019: A Retrospective

We plan and god laughs.

[Oh no, you were landscaping and you were going to set off fireworks...-Ed]

Not that, still have all my fingers. I can still count to ten, twenty- one if...

[Don't say it-Ed]

The landscaping went swimmingly.

So at 3 PM or so we were gasing up the Waterproof, our motorboat named after our grandmother's home town of Waterproof, Louisiana, when the gas cap fell off the chain and into the watery muck.

So that happened.

We set off some Pennsylvania Fireworks, which went well enough. We were fire-cracking mad for the things as a youth, and one never really looses that skill set, or the desire to see just how many bottle rockets one can set off at once. Here, fire is your friend. We may or may not have said, 'Let's just light the whole goddam bag on fire.'

Mrs. Stroock may or may not have been displeased.

A pontoon boat of drunk Millennials singing Maroon-5 songs motored in close to shore and watched.

We know what you're thinking, but our sky rockets just didn't have the range.

A young woman kept shouting, 'More fireworks!' and only the thought of Mrs. Stroock's wrath prevented us from shouting back, 'Show us your tits!' Also, 45.

Later we retired indoors and watched the Boston Pops. As always they finished with the 1812 Overture, an American tradition. Which is weird, no?

Now, yesterday our Confederate contingent berated us for the gas BBQ. Actually, our sister bought it for up here and back home in Nueva Jersey we BBQ with charcoal. That being said, it is a scientific fact the gas grills produce better food, so sayeth Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Knoxville Tennessee. So take that!

European reader(s) should not be dismissive of the gas v char argument. Insurrections have broken out over government mandates about charcoal barbeques. Give me Kingsford Light Fluid or give me death, the good people of Beaver Dam, Kentucky were once heard to shout. While the propane shortage of '89 is forever seared in the memory of Bakersfield, California.