Reborn on the Fourth of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, and I love holidays in general. I love the fact they give us all a mini vacation, an excuse to gather with family and friends and live a little larger than we normally do. They are usually accompanied by some kind of feast, and I love to eat. I had an anthropology professor in college, Dr. Lou Foltz, and he used to say, "In every culture throughout the world throughout time, food equals love." Think about it. We have a holiday, we gather together and have a feast: the Easter ham, the 4th of July barbeque, the Thanksgiving turkey. Someone gets married, there's a rehearsal dinner and reception and more feasting. Someone dies, family and friends mourn the death and comfort one another over a meal. Food brings us together. Doug and Gretchen's son Tucker is a gifted chef who graduated from the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, and he can create food of all kinds that is a fourth of July fireworks display of taste sensations and an expressive parade on the table, amazing to taste and beautiful to look at. He is an artist with kitchen tools and simple ingredients, and expresses his love to his family by preparing incredible meals. If you are ever looking for a caterer for a wedding or special event, you can contact him through Gretchen's blog. I will try to provide a better link later.

I love the whole atmosphere of the 4th of July, the fireworks, certainly, but also the fun and informality. Picnics and cold drinks, a blanket in the shade. It's wonderful to celebrate the 4th of July in a small town, when the whole town dresses up and puts on its sequins and tasseled shoes and throws a party on Main Street. The mayor goes by in a pretty car. A troupe of sweet, smiling young girls twirl down the street with ribbons in their hair, performing a dance they've practiced for months. I love the pride on their faces, the happiness they give out to the crowd. Rodeo queens and mounted sheriffs' posses do the parade wave from the backs of beautiful horses with braided manes. There is a magic in a Fourth of July parade, a hopefulness. And afterwards there is cold lemonade, the most perfect drink in the world if it is made with real lemons. Calories consumed with family, on beach trips and picnics and special occasions, don't count. Oh I know they count in a strict sense, but I believe they are truly good for you, because they are good for your human heart. Just be sure to consume as much conversation and laughter as you do strawberry pie, and you will have a completely balanced Fourth of July diet.

I am especially looking forward to this Fourth, because Marie and I have another date. We're going to play golf at Frontier, a little nine hole pitch and putt tucked away in the country a couple of miles west of Canby. Years ago Mr. Sisul turned a piece of his farm into a golf course, and it is a quiet, beautiful place, golf scaled down with 90-yard holes and a gentle pace, just right for families and first dates. I've fallen in love with Marie all over again many times on the eighth hole. She'll be wearing some summer clothes and the wind will be playing with the wisps of her hair and I just can't believe how beautiful she is, how happy I am just to be where she is. I need to write a book, get a $25,000 advance, pay our bills so we can be together and be happy; I just want all the longing and sad phone calls to end. This weekend her mother is in the hospital: her blood pressure got down to something like 60 over 30 and she was extremely dehydrated and weak after some intestinal problems. I offered to drive Marie down to Crescent City to see her but Gladys seems to be recovering and it doesn't seem necessary. We'll wait and go down when she's home and happy and ready for a visit. And we'll celebrate with a good meal, because that's what families do. Food does equal love. You just have to choose the right portions of each.