Happy 4th July

[Tack]

Yay, no late conference calls for Mr T tonight

Have a good one Yanks.

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Oh! Thanks Tack! I forgot all about it, myself. I suppose one of these days I should take Wolfie to one of those American Association July 4th bashes so he can take up a bit of his other culture.

Wow, I just paused to spend some time thinking about the 4th of July. All the parades and barbeques since childhood. Uncle Sam and Stars and Stripes Forever. Lighting sparklers and bottle rockets. Then at night watching the fireworks to a music montage of patriotic theme songs. I can remember lying on a blanket in the middle of a field of people watching fireworks and hearing Jimi Hendrix' Star Spangled solo while holding hands with my college sweetheart. But then there's always some cretin music coordinator who has to play Neil Diamond's cheezy Coming to America.

As funny as it may sound, I sometimes forget I'm American. My son is half Singaporean, and I guess in many ways I'm becoming half Singaporean as well.

I suddlenly have a hankerin' for Sousa marches.

[cromasaig]

Happy Independence Day, Lili, T2K et al. Y'all sure you don't want to come back now? Oh, OK.

Reminds me. I must phone my Granny, she's a yank (of sorts).

And while we're on the subject, why Seppo? I get the cockney rhyming slang thing, but why aren't they Fish? Or better still, Shermans? I could grow fond of 'Shermans'.

[BoD]

Maybe "Gas" would be more appropriate

[slinky]

Thanks for the Happy 4th wishes all - I'm sure there will be a full weekend of BBQ's in the US given they get a long weekend for it this year.

Lili - the Sembawang bash is good fun - you should make a trip up for it. Lots of food and lots of beer And, of course, kids' stuff like face painting and bouncy castles, etc. Nice fireworks too!

Edit: Sluggo's and Lili's memories reminded me that July 4th was my grandfather's birthday, so we had a BIG party every year to celebrate both & much of our extended family made a trip to our house for the event each year. Good times!!

[sluggo]

Thanks for the well wishes, it was one of my favorite holidays as a kid. We would blow up anything we could get our little hands on. Quite fun.

[canuck]

Happy 4th you beer swilling, firecrack popping people Canadians are not allowed fireworks, if we want to blow things up we have to think large

fecking work keeping me busy all day

[Lichtgestalt]

Happy 4th of July to all the English people here as well...

[Zephyr]

Happy 4th of July to all Americans from me too.

[Joy]

Happy 4th of July!

What a great day...

[T2K]

Thanks Tack. Independence Day is my 2nd favorite holiday, right behind Thanksgiving (our only two day holiday).

[skank-la]

Started out Independence day with our now annual trek to the Elks Pancake Breakfast at the Kurts 674 Pioneer Ranch on the Eastern edge of outer LA's San Gabriel Valley. Its an old ranch that is now a Pioneer Museum & we had Fresh Buttermilk Pancakes, Homemade Patty Sausage, Fresh OJ, Coffee etc out under the hige shady trees at 7AM this morning. We followed our habit of sharing a table with complete strangers & having an early coffee & breakfast making new friends on the morning of the 4th.

Later in the day trekked over the local high school football field with blankets, chairs &ice chest full of refreshments & spent time at the carnival. Throwing baseballs to knock somebody into the dunk tank, eating funnel cakes, Italian Sausages & Corn Dogs, drinking copius amounts of beer. Later on the main stage came the bands lots of dancing, the skydivers jumping out at 10000 feet & landing on targets just in front of the stage. At sundown the firework show was just grand. To remind us that this was in still fact LA, we finished the day off eating taco's & burritos from a stand at tables on the sidewalk with lots of other tired & half drunk revelers & headed home.

What I like abouth the 4th is there's real no 'commercial' angle to it. This time I agree with T2K the 4th & Thanksgiving are the best.