The 4th of July used to be one of my favorite holidays. And it had little or nothing to do with love of my country and a lot to do with love of my family. Here is how it went: Momma would make her fabulous pork barbecue and cole slaw and potato salad and Daddy would fire up the grill for burgers and hot dogs. My sister, M., would go out on a mission to find great (but legal) fireworks – the kind that stay on the ground and spray into the air – most people wouldn’t see the charm in them but they never saw them like we did. So we would gather in the backyard at Momma and Daddy’s house (it was, well…still is…on a lake). We would laugh and eat and bicker and eat and laugh and roast marshmallows until it started to get dark. Then M would bring all the fireworks down to the little sand beach and Daddy would put the platform (specially made for and only used for this event) onto the johnboat and check the rope on the boat. And then, with the Boston Pops concert playing in the background, the show would begin. M lined the fireworks up for the show, always saving the best for last and Daddy picked up the first one in line, waded into the water to place it on the boat’s platform, lit the fuse and pushed the boat out into the lake as far as the rope would allow. And, oh, how we “oohhhed” and “ahhhhhhed!” If the night was particular humid (this is Virginia after all), the smoke would soon collect on the lake but this did not deter us. By the time the Pops got to the “Stars and Stripes Forever” we were on the biggest and brightest fireworks and other people who lived around the lake had gathered on their shorelines to join in the fun. It was a grand tradition and no amount of coaxing or cajoling has encouraged me to love the 4th of July since that tradition ended.