The 4th of July

July, my birthday month and the month of summer vacation, has always been my favorite.  When I married and moved into my first house, on Manchester Lane, off Memory Way, on Long Island, it was time to ring in the holiday traditions, and when my babes came along, I had another two to enjoy the party with me.


Mother's Day was never anything like summer.  I remember chilly days trying to get a start on gardening, planting the canna lily tubers that had been wintering in boxes under the beds with frozen fingers.


Memorial Day, supposedly ushering in the summer, was a fraud.  The pool temp was reliably in the 60's and after the first year or two I was hardly tempted to take the plunge.  June was barely summer.


But July was summer.  And the Fourth of July was the first real summer holiday.


I began the day at 5 a.m.  That's right.  And that is the only day in the year I saw that hour, willingly.


It was because of my recipe for Chocolate Bread, that I had cut out of the Sunday Times, that I began that tradition.  I decided that brunch would be at 10, and working backwards, with two rises, I had to start the bread at 5.


After I started the first rise, I swam.  It was glorious, being awake and in the water, doing laps, at that hour, when no one else was up and about.  And especially since I knew I would never do it again, until the next 4th of July.


When the 4th fell on the weekend we would move the TV outside and watch the Wimbledon finals at 9 a.m.  I say we meaning Stephan, because he did the hauling and hooking up, I did the watching.


Somehow I don't remember Wimbledon after the kids came along to share the holiday.  I think it just got replaced with chocolate bread with strawberry butter and a day of playing in the pool.


A few years before we split up and I left for the South, our best friends, with children of similar ages, began to join us for the 4th.  They had up until then visited for one or two pool days a summer, but two days of food and wine and laughter just weren't enough.


I began making dips and spreads, the more new recipes the better, days in advance, the menu was extravagant, the wine, well, the wine came in a box and was just fine.  Stephan was in charge of the grill, just as Chris was the griller when we visited them.


The visit always began with a glass of wine and a tour of the garden.  These were city friends who, as the summer wore on were totally impressed with the giant zucchinis, the dozens of tomato and pepper varieties, the bizarre cucuzzi and the 60 pound pumpkin.  This early in the summer, they were gratified enough by the size of the garden and the spring flowers and strawberries.


At some point the morning wine became mimosas, along with the chocolate bread.  Meals were separated by time in the pool.


The older kids were inseparable.  The third child to join in was my son, and tried and tried to fit in.  The baby was the baby and just graced us with her presence the last couple of years we lived there.


I envied Linda and Chris their ease with the kids.  They spent hours in the pool inventing delicious games where they were monsters chasing, of course, small children.  Chris invented something wherein he would periodically belt out "Don Giovanni", and I have no idea if the game had rules or any point at all except to sing out "Don Giovanni".


We drank and ate and played all day.  At one of the first of these summer parties, Jeremy ate his first solid meal of grilled flank steak, which he promptly threw up.


As dessert came and went and eventually it got dark, we waited for the first sound of fireworks.


Because when we first moved to Manchester Lane, we had to work to see the fireworks, climbing out on the roof of the house, or climbing a chair by the fence.


But those last few years, there were fireworks, big, real fireworks exploding nearby.  Easily seen from the back yard, even better from the middle of Manchester Lane.


It doesn't get much better than that.


Happy 4th.