Through An 'Old Timer's' Eyes
By Howard 'Mac' McDonald

Over the Independence Day holiday, we put up a patriotic display at the entrance of our home. I have decided to let it stand as not only a tribute to our nation, but also a salute to the troops who are serving us.

Part of the display is the "Sons in Service" flag, with the blue stars centered in white, surrounded by a red border. That symbol dates back to World War I and World War II, when families hung these flags in their windows to signify a member in active service. Sadly, some families had to replace the blue star with a gold star, sending the message that a family member had died in action.

Our Sons in Service flags are a tribute to our two grandsons in service.

Middle-of-the-week holidays seem to mess up a lot of people's schedules. It would be nice if everyone could just take the whole week off, but the bean counters couldn't put up with that.

Most companies couldn't afford it, and I can understand that, but if our government can spend $2 billion a week in Iraq, maybe it can also afford to give everyone a week off to mark the country's birthday. Just another of my crazy thoughts.

Independence Day sent me to the history books, where I was reminded that there were two famous rides that came out of that era -- Paul Revere's ride and the ride of Caesar Rodney. Most people have never heard of Caesar.

He was brigadier-general of the Delaware militia and one of our founding fathers. He rode 80 miles from Dover to Philadelphia to break a tie vote and enable Delaware to approve the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania was the second state to ratify the Constitution, so we really are the Keystone State.

There is a lot of national history in the northeast corner of the U.S. It would be well worth a trip to see the many historic sites.

When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was the highlight of the summer. It meant fireworks, picnics and other entertainment.

Our celebrations always included a peck basket of my mother's fried chicken and a big old watermelon, chilled in a wash tub of ice cold water. We played softball, ran foot races and drank gallons of iced

tea or Kool- Aid.

One of our neighbors, Burl Jarvis, had a small cannon and he would fire that thing all

day long.

Bill was a little on the eccentric side. One time he was riding along in his Ford Model A sedan with a couple of pounds of black powder for his cannon in the back seat. Burl always smoked those big Cuban cigars. One of the ashes came off and you can guess what happened.

Burl was off making quite a production out of getting his small brass cannon ready for its first firing. All of the neighbors were watching him strutting around like a leghorn rooster while the ember continued to smolder away over in his car. Finally, that fanned into a flame and the blast was so loud that my ears rang for about a week.

My best friend Eddie Bozik and I climbed up in the hayloft of the cow barn, so were able to watch the whole show. The roof of that old Ford came

down in the driveway

about 200 feet away. Most of the spectators got knocked down and Burl somehow grabbed anchor on the cow pasture fence. No one was badly injured, but Burl did lose some of his hearing for the rest of his life.

At least Burl could say he had the first convertible in Kelly Hollow. The old Ford still ran after the explosion and Burl pointed out that, without a roof, it was easier for him to load the chicken feed into his back seat.

My mother always told us to be be wary of Burl. She often said, "Boys, that guy's elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor." But Eddie and I never missed a chance to ride in that Ford and neither of us cared about Burl's elevator.

Emporium had a successful Art Fest and fireworks show for the holiday. The Storm football crew put out a great sausage sandwich. There was also some excellent weather for this year's Old Home Week carnival.

Back at the start of June, I said that my records showed we almost have 20 days of rain out of the 30 every June. We started out with five days of rain and I was on a roll, but after that we barely saw a drop.