The Glorious 4th!

Hello my dear friends,

Do you remember the “Glorious 4th”?... in "OUR INWOOD"?

I always remember from Sister George’s history and civics classes that John Adams called it “… the Glorious 4th!”

Ahh, my dear friends… it is the 4th of July… and the memories come flooding back as this wink, blink and nod… takes me back to going “…down the river…” to the Henry Hudson Ball fields… a paper bag full of fireworks… purchased on Mulberry Street… right on the Little Italy/Chinatown border…

About 10 packs of crackers… 6 bottle rockets… and as many roman candles too… will get us through the evening… perhaps if Joey A. is down there I will be able to buy a couple of Cherry Bombs… we’ll see…

The fields are full… families having fun… Mr. Casey gives me a tip that a good 6 to 8 inch piece of clothesline well-lit with a cigarette lighter will burn all night… and is the best firecracker fuse lighter around… he was right…

The show is about to begin as the sun has gone down beyond the Palisades… Roman Candles are lighting up the sky with green red and blue bursts of fire… the bottle rockets whistle high into the air and explode… the packs of crackers go off in rapid succession…
You can see the older guys who are wearing their heavy boots stepping on the duds… couldn’t do that with a sneaker…

The local police squad-car cruises through and as soon as they see that half the fathers are cops… they will not be seen again… for the rest of the evening…

The day of course began with the traditional marathon stickball game… a real 12 inning affair… with so many 2 sewer homeruns you lost count… only to be ended by a 3 sewer blast that lost the ball… the late afternoon and early evening saw one of the bar league games being played… GarryOwens beat Sam’s 3-2…

Now-a-days, the 4th is celebrated with a reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of Town Hall… and then a stop at the Pork Store for Brats… and then back home to the pool… its different… that’s for sure… as we’ve moved out to the burbs…

But, the memories are still vivid of a neighborhood coming together to celebrate the birth of our nation… of fathers who were just 10 years home from a world war that defeated the enemies of our wonderful democracy… and saved the world for us… and of course they were the men who brought back one very important thing… to "OUR INWOOD"!... they brought back...

Peace,
Inwood Guy