Today's bittersweet for me - I have always loved Independence Day, not just for the celebration of our nation, but for duality of the holiday. My dad - Calvin Coolidge Crawford -was born on the 4th of July during Calvin Coolidge's presidency- (1924) - to a very patriotic mother (obviously). Dad's been gone 7 months now, and the day is a lot harder than I thought it would be without him...
Growing up, we celebrated the 4th always as the national holiday but also Dad's birthday and my childhood was spent on the shores of Lake Erie or at various inland parks, with family & friends, cooking out, swimming and having an amazing time.
Swimming was always a focal point, Dad was going off the high dive on his 50th birthday. We spent many years at the beach at East Harbor too. There was always a cookout, birthday cake, and at least one thunderstorm midday that would send us running to the cars or shelters, shivering from the sudden drop in temperature. Those times were still fun because we might end up at a putt-putt or better yet, an ice cream stand. Still in our suits, wrapped in beach towels and then the party would move on to someone's house or back to the parks.
At day's end, fireworks were usually watched at the bank parking lot across from Hill's, a department store that had a nice display -or- from Battery Park, watching the sky illuminate from Cedar Point, across Sandusky Bay.
Dad never minded sharing his birthday with the whole country; in fact, he seemed honored to be born on Independence Day. We called him our firecracker and he was.
For me, this year, the day seems to have fizzled without him.
No comments:
Post a Comment