4th of July 2006

We had a 4th of July party today. It is not the kind of party that will go down in the annals of party history. We BBQed chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs and smoked sausages. We had some salads, beans and snacks. At it's peak we had about 16 people here. Several came and went during the day.

We sat around and visited and snacked during the day. We dined around 5 PM. Then we threw a movie into the DVD player and watched it until it got dark. Around 9:15 we moved the party out into the driveway. There we shot off several packages of fireworks in the cul-de-sac and ate watermelon.

In years past we had all the families in the cul-de-sac join us for this. But through the years the other families have found other things to do for the 4th. The last few years we have been the only family home on the 4th.

This year however the folks who moved in a couple houses down from us were home. At least their kids were home. They had their garage band playing in the driveway with about 30 high school kids hanging around listening. Normally we would have welcomed neighbors to enjoy the fireworks with us. But the "music" this band was playing was really annoying.

Now I grew up while heavy metal was at it's peak and most of my friends all listened to it. Even as a kid I didn't appreciate it. As an older adult I like it even less. The one high school kid that was at our party was raving about how good those guys were. But when I asked her to tap her foot to the beat of the music, or tell me what they lyrics they were singing were she couldn't do either. That is mostly because there was no rythem to the music and the lyrics if there were any were completely unintelligable. Even when they stopped playing and the "lead singer" started talking to the crowd you could not understand a word he said. The distortion coming out of the speakers was ridiculous.

So we shot off our boxes of completely wimpy California legal fireworks to the accompliment of a deafening noise that was being passed off as music. Fortunately the concert was short. Apparently this "band" only knows about 5 songs. But you could have fooled me. It sounded to me like they played the same "song" five times. How do you tell the difference when each song is guitar noise mixed with bass noise with a drummer that is just pounding on the drums with no rythem or beat and a singer or two who is just yelling into a microphone.

Inspite of the noisy fireworks display we had a fun evening. It was a good 4th of July. Pretty good food, if as the chef I do say so myself, good friends, and a chance to celebrate our freedom and independence.