Sparkler
(This is a memory piece about holiday celebrations and my family. I wrote it in appreciation of my bonkers, out-there dad, who passed away around this time in 2002, and also, how much fun and how very important family parties are when you’re a kid. Please enjoy.)
I was born in the late 70’s to parents who graduated high school in the late 70’s and liked to throw Black-Sabbath inspired Fourth of July parties. What that entailed was rowdy friends, loud rock-n-roll, lots of cheap beer, and oversized, illegal fireworks that my dad and his friends somehow smuggled into Illinois from Canada each year. Hamburgers and hot dogs had every chance of burning on the grill, as did the American flag. That wasn’t an arrangement on the picnic table. Nope, it was just a decorative bong.
My grandparents, who lived next door and disapproved of marijuana and flag burning – but not hot dogs – often showed up in between going to veterans parades and respectable church friends’ festivities. My grandma usually sported a sleeveless polyester blouse in vibrant shades of red, white and blue, despite the stares that followed her like a trail of perfume. She brought me sparkly red, white, and blue barrettes with streaming ribbons and beads of the same colors, which she fastened into my hair with satisfaction. My grandpa cornered any man with long hair and proudly showed off his World War II shrapnel scars and his Republican National Convention pin from 1978. My mom, usually with a green handkerchief tied around her hair, immigrant style, let me run around the yard in my bathing suits or sometimes, naked – instead of in the requisite red, white and blue sundress – which was what probably drove my grandpa to retire early from these occasions.
