When, in the course of weekly events, there is nothing especially noteworthy, it becomes necessary for me to write about different things. Sometimes I like to amuse myself by thinking back about what I was doing at a particular time of year throughout different periods of my life. With the Fourth of July coming up, I thought I would go through the years of my life and remember as many details about July 4 as I can. To keep it simple, I will focus only on the Fourth--no July 3 or July 5 or other peripheral dates. I have arranged them by years so you can jump to a year that interests you.
2010--This was a Sunday. I was passing the sacrament, and our first counselor, Brother Savage, asked me to say the opening prayer. He commented on the stars and stripes tie I was wearing. After church, my roommates, Jeff Anderson ("Janderson") and Jeff Clegg ("Clegg"), invited me to a barbecue that their friend Kyle had invited them to. I felt a little unscrupulous, crashing another ward's fast-breaking barbecue. Their friend Kyle was doing the barbecuing. My roommates and I and some of their other friends sat at a swingset in the back of the yard. I remember that the conversation turned to Asians adoring pale skin, and Clegg said that they would see me as a white god. One of their friends also asked me if I got my shoes at a particular missionary store, but I didn't. Someone put their plate of apple pie on the ground, and ants were getting into it. Clegg told me I could eat the apple pie (the stuff on the table--not the ant-eaten one) because it was seasonal. I told him it was only seasonal at Thanksgiving. He told me I was getting my holidays mixed up. After the barbecue, we had to walk over to Kyle's grandmother's house because Clegg had to get some stuff from Kyle. On the way, we had a discussion about a pipe in the gutter (I guess you could say our minds were in the gutter), but I don't remember what was said. In the plastic bag Clegg acquired from Kyle was a small jar of Nutella. Janderson was talking about renting Slumdog Millionaire, justifying its R-rating with the fact that there are PG-13 movies that are worse. (Personally, I think this fact should lead one to avoid PG-13 movies, not to view R-rated ones--but, whatever.) Later that evening, when I was alone in the apartment, I watched the "Peanuts Motion Comics" clip called "Independence Day," and I sat on the couch reading the Ensign and eating a patriotic Tootsie Roll Pop. Later that evening I went somewhere. I believe I went to Lori McKee's apartment because there was supposed to be a Culture Night but it didn't happen. When I came back, Clegg said to me, "Two words: sugar cookies," because I had previously volunteered to make cookies if they provided the ingredients. I told him that it was too late and that the Fourth of July would be over the next day, so there would be nothing in it for me.
2009--In the morning I left Pullman, WA, where I was on exchanges with Elder Keddington, to go back to my area in Lewiston, ID. We met at our church building because there was a Fourth of July breakfast going on. The Pullman elders left, and my companion Elder Warren started to go for the food that was being prepared, but the sister preparing it--I can't remember if it was Sister Mundell or Sister Laney--reproved him and told us to go inside where the opening patriotic exercises were going on. In one of the overflows we sang "America the Beautiful" (I think). While eating breakfast, a peacock had flown over the fence into the church yard, and some of the young women decided to go run to it. Before they got there, it flew away. Elder Warren remarked, "What were they expecting to do once they got to it?" There was a non-member there who was the boyfriend of the daughter of one of the elderly sisters, and he talked to us briefly. We helped put away tables and chairs, and then we went to the gas station, where I bought a large red, white and blue popsicle to eat later. It was a work day, so we walked around hoping to talk to people, but it was a hot holiday, so there were few people out. We had a lunch appointment with a less-active family, the Heaths, so we went there. Katelyn Heath was there, so I tried to make some conversation with her, but we couldn't really because her Church-hating father was also there. I don't remember all of the day's events. At one point we stopped back at the church building, where a bunch of people had parked for a party at the house next door. We also talked to a friendly man on 16th Street, but he wasn't interested. Some members, the Robinsons, had dropped off dinner, including ingredients for root beer floats. After we had dinner we walked around some more. While we were walking on Powers Avenue, around 18th Street, some members, the Christensens, called us and told us they had leftover steak if we wanted some. I told Brother Christensen we had already eaten, but thanked him. When I told Elder Warren about the conversation, he said he would like some steak, so he called him back, and we walked back to our car so we could drive out to their house. Since I don't care for steak, I ate watermelon while Elder Warren ate meat. He insisted on playing one game of air hockey, and then we went back to our walkable area. After planning that night and before bed, we sat on the deck of our ridiculous apartment to watch what fireworks we could see come over the hill, and the horses in the field by our house were going crazy. I ate my popsicle while watching the fireworks.
2008--It was a Friday. We did our weekly planning in the morning, and then we went to the church. While the other elders played basketball in the gym (as it was a P-day), Elder Bramall and I had a lesson with Leslie Couch, with Sister Strang as a fellowshipper, in the primary room. We taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation. We didn't read Jeremiah 1:5, as we often did while teaching that lesson, but when we finished, Leslie said she always knew that God said "I knew you before you were in your mother's womb," and that was a comfort to her because she had been adopted. She said she had never made the connection that we lived with God before we were born, but it made sense. Later that day we went with the other East Wenatchee elders, Elder Hansen and Elder Moench, to their bishop's enormous house in Rock Island. I had brought the CDs with patriotic hymns on them in the car, but I was too embarrassed to ask to put them in the CD player. At the bishop's house, I remember at one point there we were sitting with a twenty-something member, and Elder Moench and he were talking about Richard Dutcher, and Elder Moench at one point quoted Moe from The Simpsons, "I don't care about your freakin' teeth!" After we left there, Elder Hansen had me drive to Wenatchee. While we were driving along the main road there, we were looking for the famous big Indian sign, but I never saw it. We parked at a parking lot, and went to a big park where we hoped to see some recent converts, the Byingtons, but they weren't there. As we were approaching the park, there was a girl--presumably having drunk too much--throwing up in the bushes. Elder Bramall told a story of a drunk girl he had met who said she was a prophet and Joseph Smith was a prophet, but Elder Bramall told her they couldn't both be prophets because Joseph Smith said not to drink alcohol. Walking in this park, we were approaching a table for the Calvary Chapel Fellowship of Wenatchee Valley, and one of their representatives came up to us and gave us water bottles with labels talking about the Living Water and that we should follow Jesus and no one else. There was a church youth group going around selling Krispy Kreme donuts for a fundraiser, so we bought some and sat on the ground and ate them. Elder Bramall told an awkward personal family story. Then we left, having never seen the Byingtons, and as we were leaving, some obnoxious person was shining a green light on us. Once we got home, we changed out of our "pross," and sat in our car at the back of the house to watch the fireworks as they came up over the hill. As district leader, Elder Bramall had to ensure everyone made it home, and he was very frustrated he couldn't get a hold of the Omak elders. While walking inside, I noted how weird it was to be outside on a summer night in shorts, and that it would be a long time before I had that sensation again.
2007--I woke up about 11:00 a.m. I had spent the night at my grandparents' house, since they lived close to the Walmart where I worked, and my family was all out of town. I wore a red T-shirt with Snoopy and Woodstock dressed in Uncle Sam costumes for a couple of hours before work, and my grandparents showed me the video they had taken of my graduation. We all laughed at my not-quite-four-year-old niece hamming it up for the camera. I went to work at 2:00. One of my coworkers, Helen, was particularly unhappy about working on the Fourth (but she was always unhappy about working), and talked about just leaving. Another coworker, Alice, was saying to me that of course we all wanted to be out barbecuing. This was quite easily the worst, most boring holiday of my entire life, as I had to work until late at night.
2006--In the morning we went to the Fillmore Fourth of July parade. We were by my aunt Sarena and her daughter Krishelle, who had never seen my nephew Preston before. He was almost twenty months old, and they remarked at the hideousness of the tail mullet thing growing on the back of his head. All of us, except for my brother and his wife, were grateful for this opinion, as we had been saying that for months. I was really annoyed at the noisy muscle cars that would purposely rev up their engines, and hurt my ears and made Preston cry. His mom Ya-ping and her sister Shu-hua would take him away from the parade. I remember saying it was inappropriate to celebrate America by making its citizens deaf, and my brother David saying that reminded him of a quote from The Simpsons--"Celebrate the birth of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." When they weren't far away from the parade (when the noisy vehicles weren't around), Ya-ping was very aggressive at picking up the candy the people on the floats would throw. We returned home that day, and my mom bought a cake from Winegar's grocery store that had a little plastic America on it. My brother turned on Hoodwinked for the kids, and said that Preston was so affected by the noisy cars in the parade that when there was a noise on the TV (which obviously was not loud from the speakers), Preston started crying. I turned the kitchen TV on to TV Land, where for the first time I saw their commercials advertising Friday Movie Show Night. These promos spoofed the YouTube music video "I Want to Love You Tender." Their first promo was for Pee Wee's Big Adventure. My mom was on the phone talking to my aunt about possible going somewhere to see fireworks, and my aunt told her that one place was playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory outside. But we didn't end up going anywhere.
2005--In Fillmore, we went to see the names of all the Millard County-ites who had been in the military in some way and saw both my dad's name and my grandpa's name. We watched the parade. One part of the parade featured men on four-wheelers in Ernie and Bert costumes. The announcer for the parade said that a particular person was probably in "one of those costumes," and my mom said the announcer must not have kids because he wouldn't call them "costumes" if he did. On the way home, we ate Circus Animal cookies that were spring colored--yellow, pink and white instead of just pink and white.
2004--It was a Sunday. All I really remember is sitting in the living room in the light of the neon light flag on the fire place, after everyone was in bed, munching on red, white and blue Goldfish crackers and playing with a laser pen from Taiwan. I was really depressed, thinking about the passage of time, that a month of summer vacation was already over, that I was going to learn to drive and would be entering high school, that my niece was almost a year old, and that it had been almost a year since we had been to Vernal and the Dinosaur Quarry when my niece was only a month old.
2003--It would have been a Friday. I remember going to the Chinese store with my brother and his then-girlfriend Ya-ping and her sister Shu-li (I think) and I know my brother's friend Preston was in there somewhere too. I was especially nerdy at this time and wanted to listen to the soundtrack to The Music Man but I was in the minority. That night I turned on TV Land, where they were doing a series of episodes that led to spinoffs, such as the episode of Happy Days with Mork. I ate red, white and blue vanilla ice cream.
2002--Sadly, I don't remember anything about this Independence Day. I remember days around the same time, but I don't remember the holiday itself.
2001--My family was on vacation in upstate New York. We might have gone to see a river, but I can't remember if that was actually on July 4. I don't remember a whole lot, except that my aunt's family was going to go see some fireworks. I was a little hesitant about going, because of my then-uncle Wayne's habitual tendency toward orneriness. I went anyway, and as we pulled up to the fairgrounds, I saw the sign saying "Oswego County Fair" and I asked if that meant it was the county fair of Oswego or the fair of Oswego County. My cousin Jesse didn't understand what I was talking about. Once the fireworks started, I remember my cousins Jesse and Joey and I having a conversation about how unimpressive these fireworks were. There was a stationary firework on the ground that was an American flag, but that was the only cool one. Jesse said that he had seen flowers (as in the home firework--"ground blooms") do more amazing things. My aunt reproved us for our negativity. As we left, I remember a conversation about carnival workers. When we got back to "the Pond," my mom and the others there said that someone had been setting off illegal Pennsylvanian fireworks that they were able to watch. I remember then that I regretted going, because the fireworks were so unimpressive and I could have stayed at the house and watched the fireworks reflected on the water.
2000--It would have been a Tuesday. All I remember is that, being a peculiar eleven-year-old, I was working on a comic book I had started, and my brother was reading it, and I was embarrassed to have him read it.
1999--It was a Sunday. After church, we ate French toast with blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream. I remarked that it was inappropriate that my brother was wearing Austrian suspenders on America's Independence Day, but he pointed out that the edelweiss flowers on them were red, white and blue.
1998, 1997--I don't remember anything from these years :(
1996--We went to the Fillmore parade. My mom had told me that they wouldn't throw candy at the parade like they used to because it was dangerous. But I misunderstood what she was saying, and when they started throwing candy, I thought it meant I wasn't allowed to pick it up. Everyone was asking me why I wasn't picking anything up. My brother picked up a firetruck keychain (at this time I collected keychains) and gave it to me later, acting like he had done some heroic, altruistic act in getting it for me.
1995--We were at a family reunion in upstate New York. My mom had bought these huge greenish-gray shirts for us all to wear so we would match. I was wearing shorts with vertical red, white and blue stripes with some hints of green. My cousin Joey and I were talking with our older cousin Tammy and pretending to be the Statue of Liberty, putting our hands up, holding imaginary torches. At one point I said, "I'm the Statue of Freedom," and just stood doing nothing (no hand in the air), and she corrected me with "Liberty." Then I was able to educate her about the Statue of Freedom I had seen elsewhere on my trip, which was a woman with an eagle on her head. I remember watching my brother and older cousins and second cousins playing a game of basketball.
1994 and earlier--I can't really remember anything.
This post took about two hours to write. :)
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