A series of essays.....
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| THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1955 STYLE ~ MISHAWAKA, INDIANA |
.....as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E. Hughes
Believe it or not, kids, there was a time when the world
felt much larger than it does today.
It was a time when we were merely passengers in the
buckle-less back seat of Dad's powder blue, 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air, 2-door
sedan. Family vacations meant spending hours together with our siblings, with no
escape route (back doors), while watching the America of our youth pass by
beyond the sleek, curved back windows. The car was everything to us. It defined
freedom and mobility and took us to Church on Sunday, Pikes Peak in early August
and back home again, and Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Flying on a
commercial plane was a luxury meant for the rich, the businessman, and, by 1958,
jet-setters blazing new trails into the future.
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| THE 1954 CHEVROLET BEL AIR ~A TRUE CLASSIC~ |
Our compartmentalized youth showed us how to separate
school and homework from social hour and playtime with friends. It helped us to
appreciate the baked frozen fish sticks, canned green peas, and homemade mashed
potatoes Mom placed in front of us for supper on Friday nights; back when we sat
around the red and white, enamel and chrome dinette set as a family and talked.
It always seemed we took advantage of playing harder on Saturday nights before
having to scrub behind our ears and dress-up for Mass on Sunday
morning!
The illusion of freedom filled our heads and muddled our
thinking because.....well, because we were kids and time had no limitations on
our young, untamed imaginations.
The story I'm going to tell you is about a special time
during my youth that lingers in the positive compartment of my memory bank and
is guaranteed to pop-up at this time each year. I recall feeling immensely
blessed that on this one day out of the entire year we could witness one of the
most spectacular shows created by man. And, all the while I'd be wishing I was a bird that could
soar high above it all and witness its dramatic effects from that lofty
position!
And, so it goes....
The small, white rental house crackled with excitement.
Our anticipation was as palatable as a tall glass of icy-cold strawberry
Kool-Aid on a hot summer's day.
I especially like how happy this day makes my Mother
because, even while issuing executive orders to my brother and me, she does it
with a smile glowing across her sun-freckled face.
It is Monday, July 4, 1955, Independence Day, with all
of the extra special treats of the day soon to be enjoyed in large gulps with
memories savored and appreciated for the rest of the summer.
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| ~MY OLDER BROTHER, RON, AND ME. TAKEN IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA BEFORE MOVING BACK TO INDIANA.~ |
I remember that our president is a man called Dwight D.
Eisenhower. Dad said he is a smart man even though he is a Republican. Ronnie,
my older brother, and I dance to a song on the kitchen radio called (We're
Gonna) Rock Around The Clock by someone called Bill Haley and His Comets. Our
parents are sure that this kind of "back beat" new music will never become
popular but they let us listen to it anyway. We don't care. As long as our
stocking feet can slide across the black and white, linoleum kitchen floor, we enjoy
the freedom that the rhythm and beat give to us.
Dad will be home soon. He didn't have to work today.
Filling the car, his baby, with gas and checking the oil level at the
neighborhood gas station is the most likely reason for his absence. I like "his
baby," too! Dad taught us to respect a car because it is almost as important as
having a roof over our heads. Food is never consumed while in it and our "antsy
little selves should never put our shoe-clad feet on the cloth seats, If we know
what's good for us!" We understood that quickly enough.
You see, Mom doesn't know how to drive a car. I don't
know why. So, I don't think she cares as much about them as long as Dad can take
her places. Even if she wanted to learn, I don't think Dad would ever be her
best teacher.
Mom is in the kitchen creating a mobile feast for our
picnic dinner to be consumed later while at the park. Oh, the park I'm talking
about is called Potawatomi Park over in South Bend. We live on a street called
Milburn Boulevard in Mishawaka, in the state of Indiana. All I know about it for
sure is that the word Potawatomi is fun to say. Mom says that it is the name of
the American Indian tribe that lived around here years ago and the people
decided to remember them by naming the park after them.
Ronnie and I are trying to wile away the daylight hours
by bringing out the used Popsicle sticks we've painted and numbered as our
favorite cars and drivers at the Indy 500 race. Dad just listened to the race on the
radio while washing his car a few weeks ago. We've created a big oval and a
start line and pretend we are the drivers of each car. Car Number 4 driven by
someone named Bill Vukovich is set in a special place. Ronnie told me this
driver never made it home.
I think I heard Dad pull into our driveway and Mom has
everything neatly packed inside the wicker basket. I hope there's some deviled
eggs in there. They're my favorite picnic food!
Dad grabs the blankets, basket, and blue Coleman jug
that holds pink lemonade inside with few ice cubes. Mom says that too many ice
cubes can dilute the yummy lemonade and weaken the flavor. Even though it's warm
outside, we're bringing long sleeved jackets and long pants for later when the
mosquitoes decide it's time to feast on us at the park. Mom says I might be
allergic to the nasty, little vampires because my skin swells up to twice the
size around the area where they bite me. I try not to itch them but, I always
do.
As we're pulling into Potawatomi Park, I think about the
zoo, the oldest in the state of Indiana, and the public swimming pool that my
brother and I can ride our bikes to in order to cool off in the summer. I think
it costs us fifty cents apiece to get into the pool area. Mom says she'd rather
be able to drive us there but has to learn to trust us, sometime. That makes me
feel proud. Ronnie is a good brother and watches out for me, most of the
time.
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| "LOOKING DAPPER" TAKEN WHILE LIVING ON MILBURN BOULEVARD |
But tonight it's about the fireworks and Dad hoists me
up onto his shoulders so that I can see the ones lower to the ground. I kind of
remember them from last year like when they lit-up an American flag out of
gigantic sparklers placed in a fence and it was really fun to see. Dad explains
how some rockets fizzle and stay lower to the ground than others. I don't know
if that's a mistake or not.
The crowd is large and full of happy, excited people as
we watch the stars illuminate the sky above. Dad asks me not to get any pink,
sticky sugar in his hair as I pull large tufts of cotton candy from the enormous
blob of spun sugar sticking to the white paper cone. Heaven on a stick is what I
call it! Mom and Dad munch from a small paper bag filled with caramel popcorn
studded with peanuts. Ronnie has decided to dissolve blue cotton candy on his
tongue turning it the deep blue color of the night sky. And, it's time for the
show!
For almost.....forever, the sparkling colors shoot straight up
into the sky only to gently fall back down in diminishing cascades of colored,
floating chicken feathers that shift in the breeze until they're practically
right above our heads. I found out last year that these feathers can be very
hot and burn you when one landed on my arm. Dad calls them the dying embers that
often linger as the fire-spewing rocket burns itself out.
When the fireworks begin to take on a life of their own
and swiftly go off one right after another, the excitement that I feel gets
stronger and stronger until the entire sky lights up like a magical sunrise. The
trees in the park appear to come alive as their different forms and heights
resemble a smoking dragon making its way across the horizon. It's called the
grand finale and my stomach still feels the deep vibrations from the constant
boom, boom, boom of the launching rockets.
And, just like that, they are over.
It's hard to see the people's faces through the lingering smoke. The
breeze will take it away soon. Dad asks me if I want to walk back to the car and
he pops me back off his shoulders and we become the crowd itself.
Ronnie somehow knows how tired I feel right now. He says
it's a combination of looking forward to something so much, and then it's over.
It leaves me breathless, sad, and tired, for sure. He looks over my way and
gives me a smile as he grabs my hand and, side-by-side, we walk back to the car.
Somehow the kindness he is showing me right now makes up for some of the 'behind
the back' arm tucks and other dirty tricks he often gets away with.
It's time to go home to sleep and dream of cotton candy,
fireworks, and what the rest of the summer will bring.....!
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| THE GRAND FINALE |
Wishing everyone fond memories and a very happy Fourth
of July Celebration!!!!
Copyright © 2017 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved
