The announcement in this morning's paper about the annual Fourth of July celebration at the Conway Human Development Center has cast me into a reflective mood. As a boy, our son, Barrett, had one persistent question beginning mid-June each year: "When are we going to the Celebration?"
Visions of the Celebration's food and fireworks (punctuated by skydivers and fire trucks) fueled his imagination. So we would go, I pushing his sister Jenny in her wheelchair, and he roaming, endeavoring to sample every sight and sound.
Then as twilight began stalking the grounds, I would hustle Jenny indoors to buffer her hypersensitive ears against the soon-to-come thunderous booms that always startled her. But the brilliant flashes even her blind eyes could perceive never failed to elicit coos of pleasure.
Like a thirsty sponge, Barrett soaked up the swirling hubbub distinctly foreign to our staid and steady daily routine.
Though scant, the memories of my own youth also include Fourth of July food and fireworks: gatherings of Mother's family at their deer camp near Overflow Hill east of Crossett. With Uncle Ty and Cousin Ed as ringleaders, the main attraction–real pit BBQ– held center stage by the time we arrived.
A city boy accustomed to kitchen stoves and indoor plumbing, I would dash first to inspect the curious shallow pit layered with a bed of smoldering hickory coals. Either a pig or a goat, soon to be served up hot, slowly rotated on the spit. In years when pig prevailed, parents dutifully cautioned children to beware of raw meat.
My sister, Sara, recalls Mother telling a story (perhaps from her girlhood) of seeing a mule team pulling a wagonload of logs down a corduroy logging road near the deer camp. And as the team passed an old cemetery just through the woods, a mysterious, shadowy figure could be seen riding on the end of a protruding log.
Though Old Nancy patiently waited to be saddled for gentle trots around the camp (but not near the cemetery!), Mike Foote, Sonny Lassiter and I shared grander schemes. Fireworks faithfully followed food, and we each produced a bagful of potential smoke and noise. But Sonny's arsenal invariably included real firepower; cherry bombs, M-80s and silver torpedoes pulverized the puny pops of my Black Cats.
I can't recall when or why I stopped going to the deer camp; perhaps college and career just naturally squeezed off connections to home and traditions I didn't value as highly as I might today.
Though I don't know whether the deer camp is still there, the family I knew then is long since dispersed by death and distance. Likewise, our trips to the CHDC Celebration abruptly ended when Jenny died.
But I embrace hopes that my son, whenever and wherever visions of food and fireworks yet creep into his mind, will recall the good times we shared and the goodness of God and country which make pleasant memories possible.
Copyright 2004 James McAlister
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