Dawn Phelps
Columnist
The last week of June 2011, my youngest daughter Misty, her husband Bryan Elliott, and their four children left the US and flew to the United Kingdom to live in Wales. Misty and Bryan still live in Wales, but their grownup kids now live in the US.
I remember worrying until I heard the Elliotts had made it across the Atlantic and had safely landed in London. They arrived in the UK a few days before the 4th of July. In previous years, they had celebrated in the States with hamburgers, hot dogs, s’mores, and fireworks, but their first fourth of July in the UK would be very different.
They found themselves in a country of people with British accents, a queen for a ruler, and different traditions and customs. And in 2011 it was a bit of a challenge to find some of the July 4th foods in the stores, even though a Costco was opened a year or so later, making a few more American foods available.
I talked to Misty prior to writing this and asked her to tell me about her first July 4 memories in the UK. She first told me about shopping for hot dogs and ingredients for s’mores. She said they could not find hot dogs like those in the US, and the only “hot dogs” they could find were in jars—similar but different.
Misty said they could not find graham crackers as in the US, so they bought substitutes called “digestive biscuits” (cookies) that were covered with chocolate which served as substitutes for graham crackers and chocolate bars as in the US. She said they only found pink marshmallows, so they somehow heated the digestive biscuits with pink marshmallows in the middle to make s’mores.
I asked if they had any fireworks, and she said there were no fireworks to be found at that time of year, so they celebrated July 4 by quietly marching around their fenced-in backyard waving small American flags and quietly singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” Afterall, they were celebrating liberation from the country where they would now be living!
She said they had a cigarette lighter for lighting a fire for the s’mores and thought they may have twirled the lighter around to represent fireworks. Anyway, it was an interesting conversation, but it sounded like a pathetic way to celebrate July 4th.
With July 4 so near this week, perhaps you have thought about some of your past July fourths. Maybe you too have a very unusual memory like the Elliotts. I still remember my childhood memories of our fourths in Tennessee when our daddy sometimes bought a few sparklers, but I don’t recall any wild memories.
Many years later, after I married my first husband Ralph, there was a bit more “action” on the fourths when we had picnics by the pond at Thornberry Acres east of town. We usually invited friends and family, and Ralph cooked hamburgers and hot dogs over an old-fashioned bathtub with grill made from a refrigerator rack. After dark, Ralph shot off fireworks off over the pond while we all relaxed in lawn chairs.
Then, many years ago, after Ralph died and I married Tom Phelps, I learned what it is like to really celebrate July 4! If any of you knew Tom’s son Tee Jay, you know why! I have never known anyone who loved July 4 as much as Tee Jay!
I asked Tom how Tee Joy’s love of the 4th began, and Tom said that his daughter Jenelle had a fireworks stand where she sold fireworks before the 4th. He said that Tee Jay was a “happy go lucky” kind of kid who loved to shoot off fireworks in the street for all the little kids.
The fourth of July was Tee Jay’s favorite holiday—he would say it was “even better than Christmas” for him. When he came home from Texas each July 4, he stopped at fireworks stands and bought enough fireworks for a big fireworks show.
If you knew Tee Jay, you probably also know he was one of the kindest people you could ever meet. But he was a “firebug” extraordinaire who loved to put on fireworks shows. He would hold Roman candles in his hands as they went off—a far cry from my childhood “sparkler” experiences.
One evening stands out in my mind. It was after midnight when Tee Jay gathered up all the faulty fireworks, including Roman candles, that had not properly lit. He put them all in our burn barrel in the back yard and struck a match. That was the biggest fireworks show we ever had!
As the fireworks in the barrel ignited, they came flying out of the barrel, loudly exploding, flying in all directions. There was popping and lots of screaming as people scrambled for cover. Our poor neighbors! It’s a miracle they did not call the law on us!
In contrast, after Tee Jay died five years ago, our fourths of July are totally different now. The neighborhood is quieter, and we don’t shoot off fireworks. We could never make new memories as good as when we had Tee Jay with us anyway.
Sometimes we sit in our sunroom and watch other folks’ fireworks light up the eastern sky. And we remember Tee Jay, the biggest fireworks lover ever and one of the kindest people I have ever known.
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