Wow - I can't believe I got back into my blog. I have been trying for days, but kept running through some loop.

The whole family's out of school for the summer! Except I may enroll in another class, but, maybe not. In about 3 weeks, I will open a fireworks stand. This will be our fifth year - every year is a challenge, especially when you live in West Texas, since weather is usually hot and dry.

My grandfather was the chief engineer on Benbrook Dam. He surveyed the project, planned eveything including the parks and roads, oversaw the construction and then stayed in a Corps of Engineers home built close to the facilities by the dam gates. We would visit often as children and it was always exciting. There was so much to explore and get into.

My older brother and younger sister and I would go to visit every fourth of July. Grandad would take us to the fireworks stand and we would shop prices till we came up with the best deal we could. The people working the stand must have been pretty patient to let us balance young bodies on our belly's on the counter of their display window for so long while we dreamed of colorful explosions in the sky above our heads.

Among all the other fireworks, we always bought firecrackers of course. We would put one under a can with the fuse sticking out and light it and run! Boom! We watched the can to see whose went higher. Sometimes we'd light them in our fingers and throw them as far as we could, but every now and then one of the fuses would be made of too-thin material and would burn too quickly for us to get it out of our hand. Bang! the loud explosion right next to my right ear would ring for hours, but I barely noticed since the pounding pain in my thumb and forefinger demanded all of my attention. My porr, abused, fingers would throb with every beat of my young little heart. They would have this numb feeling when you touched them so that it felt like someone else's thumb or finger, yet at the same time the pain was so intense, you knew it was indeed yours. Nothing could help.

You would think that once would be enought to teach me not to do that again, but I am not that smart: year after year I might relive the same searing pain two or three times; each time believing I had learned some key piece of information that would keep it from happening again; each time tempting fate with those last few defective firecrackers with the thin, short fuses - I think I can do this one....Bang!! Owww!

Back in those days all the cokes ("coke" is Texan for soda pop) came in glass bottles, which, by the way, is the absolute best way to drink a coke. Each state had laws requiring that a deposit of some amount be paid on each bottle when you bought your coke - that was to encourage people to return the bottle to the store and get their money back, and to discourage people from tossing those glass bottle out on the side of the road where they would break and create pain and suffering for small children riding their bikes or shuffling their bare feet. In spite of that state mandated deposit some people, who must have had a lot more money than us, would carelessly toss their bottles out anyway, leaving a treasure trove of glass money for my brother and me to pick up on July 5th after all the partying the night before. We were up with the sun. Grandad would take us to the best places which we picked clean of any valuable item lightweight enough and small enough to fit in the trunk of the car. We would carry load after load from the car into the store, then back to the lake for another load. After a few years, other people caught on and tried to take "our" bottles, which I felt thoroughly entitle to, since it was Grandad's lake after all. But we usually got there first anyway and Grandad seemed to know where the best loot was.

One year, I think 1972, Grandad had a heart attack. His doctor made him quit smoking and gave him a medical retirement. He was 62 in 1972, and he did quit smoking. He lived to be 91 years old I believe, and I preached his funeral. I miss him. After he retired the Army Corps of Engineers made him move out of the house up on the hill overlooking the lake. I miss that house too. They built a pavillion over the foundation for the old house; just poured the new one right over the old one. I can still go there and see the trees and flowers he planted, the grass he tended; and look down the hill at the water. It is nostalgic, but not pleasurable - it just makes me more aware of what is gone. And what all else is going.

I hope my children have memories like those. Not the same ones, but something just as meaningful; something that makes your eye sting when you think about it for a while.