The Attic: A Memoir

The Glorious Fourth

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH D id you ever think you and me would be doing this?" Lois asked, on our second day. "That finally it would be-just you and me?" "Yeah, because we were the youngest." When we were little, we were both put into the same bathtub on Saturday nights to save water during the drought years of the 1930s. She picked up an old newspaper from a nearby stack. "Oh, don't throw that one out," I said. "Look at the headline." FOURTH OF JULY FIRE "Remember when half the town ofRemsen burned down?" "Do lever." During the worst Depression years of the early thirties, civil disobedience-and occasional riots-were frequent throughout Iowa because so many were losing their fanns. The idea of nationhood seemed to have become so feeble for most people that to have a holiday like the Fourth of July for patriotic reassertion (Armistice Day was another) gave us children the sense of being connected to something larger: to the country as a whole. Weeks before the holiday, Uncle Jack paid serious attention to his fireworks mail order, almost as ifit were his birthday we would be celebrating along with that of the United States. He took his allegiance to the flag very seriously, and on holidays one ofus would be delegated to hang a large flag from hooks between the pillars of the front porch,just in case anybody drove into the yard who might see it. The point was, wewere aware of it on display there. And on Monday nights in spring, fall, and winter, Uncle Jack would undertake a patriotic rite by donning his blue Legionnaire'scap with gold piping and attend meetings in the American Legion Hall. How45 46 TIlB ATIlC ever, too many ofthe Rainbow Division veterans merely sat around "grousing and drinking beer" in the smoke-heavy room, forgetting obligations to "do something for your country." Our stock of fireworks, ammunition to win this day all over again for Independence, arrived in late June: garish packages and crateswithlarge-lettered scarywarnings that hungfrom ourmailbox flag or projected from the open box. This shipment could never be mistaken for an ordinary order from Sears, Roebuck. We would cluster around Jack as he cut the wire bindings and ripped open the parcels, checking to make sure the entire order was intact. The crinkly, crimsontissue paperinside was like the vestments ofChinese gunpowder masters, as mysterious as the kimono-colored paper flowers that burst open in glasses of water. "Yep, everything's here," he'd say, counting the tubular skyrockets nestled together like sticks of dynamite; the packets of firecrackers in graded sizes; and the glossy torpedoes, smooth as golf balls. "We're in good shape." "You sure spent plenty for 'em," Lizzie or Mothermight remark, frowning. "Don't leave those fireworks in the housel Take 'em out to the summer kitchen or the cob shed." Worried lest one ofus lose an eye or blow ofT a finger. They enjoyed the family gathering on the Fourth and making a feast---everything except these sinister explosives, which to us seemed the chieffeature. The morning of the holiday, the youngest among us seven received harmless ladyfingers from Jack'sdepot, plus a short stick of punk, but we couldn't even scare the cats with the tiny smack they made. For the older boys, the ordnance supplies included fat firecrackers called "number ones," to be set ofT in tin cans ("depth charges"), and torpedoes, that exploded when thrown on the sidewalk. We played war all day, whirling our sparklers across the lawn, dancing away from the glittering sparks that never seemed to hurt when they fell on bare toes. Turretlike pipes protruded from the edges of the cistern lid, perfect for inserting medium-sized firecrackers and firing away as ifdefending a fortress. The yard soon smelled of fire and brimstone, the dog cowered under the kitchen porch, and we were all having one hell of a good time. The daytime noise extravaganza would be followed by a visual night show of "the rocket's red glare." But since every army travels TIlE GLORIOUS FOURTIl 47 on its stomach, we tucked into the tray supper on the screened-in porch and savored the custard ice cream made with ice which had been cut from the horsetank half a year ago. Today the blackened cakes shaped like rocks from the earth and crusted with decomposed sawdust...