Happy Fourth!

The fourth of July conjures many happy memories for most of us, one of my favorites is the time between my junior and senior years in high school when my friend Bob Townsend and I were lighting bottle rockets off on a Missouri River sandbar by his house. The family's German Sheppard was chasing them and bringing them back. Yes, bringing them back before they exploded. No matter how hard we tried, she would manage to get ahold of at least two out of five rockets and we'd see them explode in Heide's mouth along with a mouthful of sand. *POOF!* was all we could hear. The first five or six times, we figured she'd give up, but no. That day Bob tossed a bottle rocket into the air that landed about 15 feet away from us...pointing up the sand hill. Bob wasn't fast enough to duck. But then again, Bob was never the fastest, if you know what I mean. The bottle rocket flew up the sand hill and smacked Bob right in the eye. I ducked. I got to go on vacation with my mom and dad (Bob was supposed to go with us) to Idaho and go whitewater rafting for the second time, and Bob got to go to the emergency room.

Not a happy memory if you think about from Bob's point of view. Ah hell, here's Colter trying to stuff his mouth full of as much watermelon as he can. Kinda like Heide and the bottlerockets and sand.