Monday July 4, 2005
	I'm at my grandmothers house and it's the 4th of July.
	My date is good to look at and she is bright and originally from London.   "Happy Fourth of July," she says. "Happy Fourth," I say.  My grandmother is doing something in the kitchen and my mother is standing alongside her and she is helping her do something too.  My grandmothers neighbor is over and she has brought her children with her and they have interrupted the conversation I was having to show me the sparklers they can't wait to use and when they have told me everything about sparklers they run off. "Don't run," I say. My grandmother has just taken a pie from the oven and anyone within viewing distance of the pie says things like: "Ooh," and "Ahh," and "That's some kind of pie, alright." My grandmother is old and I miss her even though I'm looking right at her and when my grandmother puts the pie on the shelf she says: "That's Norman's favorite." My date says: "Nice family, Norm." An elderly man and woman are knocking on the front screen door but everyone in this Miami neighborhood is elderly.  When the woman sees me she says (through the screen door): "Happy Fourth of July, Norman." Older people understand me right off.  They've had years and years of assorted individuals coming in and going out of their lives and to them I'm not different.  I'm "bright" and "colorful" and a "handsome young man." "Happy Fourth of July," says the elderly man who was with the elderly woman.  He knows my name and even though I can't remember his I pretend to know it and wait to hear someone else use it and when I hear it I say, "Same to you Frank." Frank has handed me a box of sparklers and he's smiling at me with faded blue eyes and even though he's not saying anything I feel that we're exchanging something and the elderly woman he came with has joined my grandmother in the kitchen and everyone is laughing and then someone says: "Happy Fourth of July everyone." "Happy holiday Norm," says my date. To my date I say: "Happy holiday." My grandmother removes another pie from the oven and when she does she says: "My grandson loves apple pies." To the best of my knowledge I can't ever recall a time when my grandmother has referred to me as her "grandson" and I'm pretty sure she never made a pie just for me.  I hope she'll be making pies (and standing in the kitchen) at our next Fourth of July gathering. "Let's light a sparkler," I say to Sylvia.  I'm thinking of my stepfather.  He served in the Navy during World War II (Radioman 3rd class) and he passed away in July of '93.  Sometimes when I'm at the shopping mall I'll see someone walking in front of me and they'll have a build and a walk similar to my father and for just a moment I'll pretend it is my father.  He's up there walking ahead of me and I'm gonna catch up to him and when I do we'll go to the food court and eat and then we'll go to the Sears and Roebuck and we'll look at tools that he'll never use or maybe we'll just sit and talk.  Of course, the person I catch up too never is him and when I want to look at tools at the Sears and Roebuck I do it alone. I'm an American.  Isn't there someone I can pay to to see him again for just a couple of minutes? Jeez, I miss him. "Let's light a sparkler," I say, again. "Let's," says my date, then standing.  "Let's light a sparkler." It's the Fourth of July in America. PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT