Happy 4th Zerelda,
I'm sure you'll get a rain day to catch up on things. I don't think the holiday weekend ends until Monday night. Potato salad & lemonade sounds good about now. Sounds like the classic holiday celebration I remember. Enjoy all and be safe!

And a Happy 4th of July to you, too, z!

Sorry it's raining for you...so disappointing, I know. There is rain scattered all around us...not quite over us yet...but, it is headed in our direction weatherman says....oh well....later tonight, I guess...we will be watching the fireworks on TV anyway...along with the concerts....entertainment without the mosquitos....

Not the same as a fun outdoor day, I know, but that concert on PBS tonight is usually good...we watch it some years...used to go to the different big fireworks displays when our son was young and brought the quilt, goodies and all that (cans of greasy old stinky "OFF!"--ick!) and lay there digesting & waiting for the darkness ~~ and then hearing everyone's "OOooooo's!" and "AAAhhhh's!" with each new shower of light...fun...

As a child, our 4ths were pretty much as you described yours...I also loved those "snakes"...and the sparklers...also had many a burned foot from forgetting how hot they are (and for long they stay that way!) ditto with my older brother loving those cherry bombs...mine (and all the other neighborhood boys his age and up) would put them (or strings of Black Cat firecrackers!) down in old metal coffee cans and light them ~~ or the big steel barrel (empty!) my Dad used to burn trash (this was loooong ago!) and God what a loud explosion! Mom would admonish with the standard "You boys are going to put out an eye or blow off all your fingers one of these days!!" she'd shake her head and keep worrying all through the churning of the ice cream (we all had to take turns either cranking or sitting on the stack of newspapers on the top of the ice cream freezer...God, was that good stuff!..still have that ice cream freezer ~~ and we will use it later today...making the old standby banana kind...yum) I was going to make a chocolate cream pie, but decided the ice cream was enough.

Remember roman candles? Those and fountains were fun.

Again, Happy 4th, z...thanks for the neat thread.

.....Great memories, z.....Sorry you're rained out today. We're doing a big BBQ later.....

The fourth was the greatest holiday of all when I was a kid. There was always a huge, all-day block party, all the kids ran around and played in the pool all day, while the kindly hosts gave us turns cranking the hand-made ice cream.

It seemed like it took HOURS, but is still, to this day, the most incredible-tasting ice cream I think I've ever had.

The watermelon was from the nearby fields, and was unbelievable. Haven't had a single one that good since.

Then when the sun started to go down, everyone gathered on the lawns on either side of the street, ate ice cream and watermelon, and the "big" boys did the fireworks.

I remember snakes! And cones, and some others I can't remember. The sparklers were my favorite (like any good "pyro!") - it's too bad it's all illegal (at least here) now, but it's better than blowing off a hand or being blinded.

.....I was going to say Roman Candles, but then I thought I was just fuzzy about it from being so young. Funny I didn't see your post before finishing my own, and how similar they are.

Happy holiday, Maddicts!

Hey Maddicts, "What's for Supper ?"(a la Grandpa Jones on Hee Haw...and don't say you didn't watch it!)

Here, it will be (even though it don't rhyme!) ~~

Grilled Cheeseburgers (or Hamburgers, if you don't know what's good!) plus fixin's

Brown Sugar Baked Beans (my mom's recipe...mine now)

Assorted Pickles and Chips

Potato Salad (mustard type)

Homemade (Banana) Ice Cream (from parents' original crank freezer (it has a new dasher) spoken of in the above post....it's ooooold! -- but the ice cream it makes is beyond heavenly.....

YUM YUM!

Your turn(s).....

Bottle rockets were my firecracker of choice. ;o) They were much bigger and better back then than they are today. Anyone remember the giant sparklers? I have never seen them since I was a kid. They were a really thick metal and almost two feet long? It took the sparkler to a whole new meaning. The 4th of July today will never be what it used to be when we were kids. Cheers.

Dry...thanks to your post I just forced (well, it didn't take much force actually!) my husband to stop watching Tiger Woods & run out and get us a watermelon! (I'd do it myself, but I'll be packing banana ice cream down here directly!)

I know it won't be good (the melon) like those of old, but hope springs eternal...cross your fingers!

.....The fruit in Southern California sucks! It's all perfect and beautiful, and totally tasteless and pithy.

Just like the people!! HA!

.....I just saw Kiernan Shipka ("Sally Draper") on a Hershey's commercial.

It's a bunch of people and s'mores, and then a close shot of Kiernan holding up a Hershey bar.

Dry, has she started to "blossom" yet?

Is Betty going to hand her over one of those "first" bras in S3? You know, the ones with only stretch nylon where the "cups" usually are?

Those were a laugh in retrospect! By the 5th grade we all just haaaaad to have one ~~ even when there was barely anything to put in it yet...remember those? Weren't they called Little Lady or something?

Kiernan may not hit puberty til S4, but you never know!

Hey, Drink&Smoke I remember those humungous sparklers. Dad would stick them into the grass in the backyard and light them with his cigarette lighter, and then hand us the small ones we'd weave around in the night air. You couldn't get too close to those big ones or risk getting burned from the sparks. I can still remember the smell of them. He'd leave the now-empty metal rods in the ground until morning when they'd be stone cold and safe to dispose of.

We always have a July 4th party at my sister's house - she has the biggest yard (and kitchen.) This year was also a high school graduation for one of her 6 kids. Between our family, neighbors, business associates and classmates there were somewhere around 100 over the course of 8 hours to enjoy hamburgers, hotdogs, chili, jambalaya, clams, five kinds of pies, cakes, chips, potato and egg salads, home baked beans, and assorted candy and soda/beer/wine. This year they rented a water slide and bouncy castle. And once it gets dark enough, they get a bonfire going to make smores. The weather was beautiful, partly sunny, and low 70s with a light breeze.

.....I think she's only 10.....but she has quite a resume already.....

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2215143/resume

She's really a classic "cute little girl" isn't she?

I hope she stays for the run (10+ years -- Please, please, Matt & Co.??) of Mad Men...she's a real asset to the show, I think...she is a real "Daddy's girl" and it takes me back.

I'm glad someone remembers those sparklers, Annie. They were quite the blazing torches. Probably one too many burns and those sparklers are now history. I remember the small sparklers got boring until we started throwing them into the air. One landed on the wooden shingled roof of our house and we nearly sh*t our pants wondering who was going to call the fire department when the roof went up in flames. Twenty years later, my parents didn't find the flying sparklers story as funny as we did. Cheers.

Sparklers were my favorites too. My Dad would Bar-b-que ribs and have some neighbors over. One kind Dad would usually take a bunch of kids out to the lake for the fireworks. Probably the most sober Dad (I hope) Watermelons were a staple too one for the kids and the one my Dad doctored with booze for the adults.

...Chelsea, a 100-Proof watermelon....that had to be tasty! How did he get the booze inside it? Cut out a little plug and just pour it in there?

I wonder...did those "injector" gadgets exist back then?

lol

Drink! How funny (not at the time, though, I'm sure) about those roof-burnin' sparklers!

That's almost as good a tale as your family's "Suicidal Silver Christmas Tree".....but not quite! (ha)

Come December (or earlier, I guess since newer Maddicts would like to hear it, probably) you'll have to post that one again....Classic!

.....I think you lay it down, cut a large hole in the top side, scoop out a lot of melon balls, pour a bottle of vodka into the cavity, throw the melon balls back in, and put it all in the freezer??

Am I close?

Then later, everyone grabs a straw and it's the Big Kahuna.

That tree story was one of the tops. A repost must certainly be in order, come holiday time!

Wow...sounds deliciously refreshing...

As to Drink's silver Christmas tree's "suicide"...it's the way he tells it that makes it so classic and funny...I couldn't recall what thread that was on to save my life, of course, other than it being way back there in either Nov. or Dec., I guess...Drink?

Oh...in scrolling way back there, I did come across Sandy's "Twelve Days of Christmas" poem about Mad Men...sooooo clever...go Sandy! Are you still around, btw??? Or did you even give up lurking? (not that I'd blame ya...)

ha?

.....I think the tree knew it was reviled and hated, and simply decided to end it all.

Just for you SCfan. ;o) I'll post my silver Christmas tree story on the blog in November. It's a story that has given me a lot of milage and a lot of laughs. I think everyone can relate to that one Christmas item in their home that makes them think....WTF is this and why do we keep putting it up? Cheers

BTW, I think Dry has a good handle on Christmas tree psychology. Do you think the tree could have survived with the help of Dr. Wayne?

Tree: I am sooooo ugly, I don't know why they pull me out of the Goodwill and make me exist.
Dr. Wayne: Tell me more about that.
Tree: Well, it is the spinning everyday on the big block and the looks I get from the family that owns me.
Dr. Wayne: Tell me more about that
Tree: I feel if I could have just been green, real and prettier the family would love me.
Dr. Wayne: Did your mother tell you that you were not pretty?
Tree: After all these sessions, you finally speak up and start provoking me....now dare you!!

Well, you know the rest of the story. Cheers

.....Go on.....

and people bitch about my red velvet cake....

.....Make that "person."

You sly dog, Dry.

Funny!

Drink...I bet Dr. Wayne would have ended that session with "How do YOU feel about that?" and still charge the poor tree $100!

And, z...I hope we get to hear all about the new Holiday 2009 red velvet cake shenanigans (you know the ingredients are already plotting against you!)...I even wrote out the recipe you gave us -- and I am planning to make it come holiday time...and then everyone will have to read TWO sets of red velvet cake cruelties...do you think maybe it's the red food coloring that makes them so mean?

lol

.....Woof!

z.....SCfan is right - this year, the ingredients are going to throw themselves on the floor BEFORE you make the cake!

.....FDC Red #7.....turned out to be carcinogenic or something??

Did I get that right?

I was just speaking "tongue in cheek" in my earlier post. I love the suicidal Christmas tree story. We shall all gather round the Colonel come holiday time while he tells the tale. Egg nog and red velvet cake will be served.

I think it was Red Dye #2 that caused all the trouble. Didn't they do away with red M&Ms for a while? Oh, the horror.