Had Belonged to Rutherford

 

It’s the Fourth of July.  Everyone else in the world seemed to know this.  A client in Australia wished me as much.  Another in the UK drew reference.  But I don’t think anyone expects that I’ll be on holiday tomorrow.  The neighbors have invited us all to a cookout.  A ‘normal’ Fourth of July, just like Joe Biden promised?  There’s that wonderful song by the Brazilian maestro Tim Maia who’d lived for years in the U.S. and spoke and sang in excellent English that a groovy day would be like the “Fourth of July.”   He must of sang that back in 1973 and been channeling Fourth of July cookouts he’d attended a few years earlier.  Unfiltered.  He makes no apologies about the reference.

My mom and sister came over mid-morning to pick up her son who’d spent the night with us.  She brought a bunch of strudel over that was delicious.  With their arrival the younger one arose and came down to tell us of her days in Dallas.  Her friend’s mom had gone all out and taken them to a drive through zoo, ice skating, horseback riding.  Yes, yes.  Dallas was very cool!.  And now, back home the party was over.  She, like her cousin had to get ready for camp, she online with the New York Times and he, parading across Brooklyn to bang tennis balls. 

 

We strode up our hill around 3:00PM.  I checked the names of a few of our neighbors to remember, as I’d otherwise be lost.  Alas, our road, Route 208, isn’t very hospitable for walking along, with no shoulder and people speeding around the corner at sixty-miles-per-hour.  I purposely strode on the pavement, to force the cars slower.  And its only three driveways down and soon we were entering our neighbors living room, considering her watercolor of the same view we have. 

At fifty-five years of age, I was probably one of the youngest folks there, which was fine for my wife and myself, but the twenty-year old and sixteen-year-old daughter didn’t have much of anyone to speak with besides themselves.  I asked one of the gents who sported a ponytail like me about his work and he mentioned that he cut trees.  Another neighbor whose husband had sadly just passed commented on one the trees in my yard she’d hoped would blow over.  Another neighbor had just lost her husband as well.  But we didn’t dwell on death or topping trees.  Rather we learned what we could about the area and the people who’d lived her before and the way that things at changed and the tale about the house next door that had belonged to Rutherford B. Hayes and his family until it was knocked down, not long ago.  I was glad to have a burger and a frank on the Fourth.  It was nice to mingle about aimlessly among people in a social setting once again.

 

 

 

Sunday, 07/04/21