Come on baby light my fire

This photo will make more sense when you read the end of this post.

Having the Fourth of July fall on a Tuesday pretty much sucks, because, unless you took off Monday and Wednesday, you essentially had the equivalent of two Mondays. I didn't take off the Monday before the 4th or the Wednesday after the 4th since I was taking off the following  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to go camping. So my Independence Day was little more than a speed bump at the beginning of the work week.

I've taken to scanning old posts before writing new ones to avoid cleverly repeating myself and retelling the same stories of my faded childhood over and over. I have written several times about my pyromaniac childhood and my love for setting off fireworks on the 4th.  I'll spare you this year.

I will say that my desire to buy any fireworks has faded substantially in my old age. It has gone the same way as any vestige of patriotism I had in my youth. I was quite content with just building a fire in the fire pit in my back yard and watching my kids incinerate marshmallows.

I was taken off guard when, while sitting around the fire, my son said his favorite story from my childhood was of me accidentally killing a sparrow with an arrow I shot into a flock of birds sitting on our lawn. He said it was the only story I'd ever told him. I was a bit shocked and embarrassed. First, it wasn't my proudest moment and second, I was sure I had told him lots of stories of my childhood.  He assured me I hadn't but if I had, he didn't remember any of them. Then he challenged me to tell him a story.

Of course my mind went blank. I was tempted to tell him to just go read my blog because I was constantly repeating stories of my childhood there. But that would have entailed explaining to my son that I have a blog and then having to explain to him why.

Someday, perhaps when he is a teenager, I'll tell him about the blog. But being a teenager, he'll likely have no desire to read anything I've written let alone all of the anecdotes about my life.

After a great deal of searching my mind for a humorous anecdote from my childhood, my wife prompted me about a time I went camping with my family and on the long drive along a winding mountain road our family dog was so excited he began to lose control of his bowels in the back seat with my two older brothers. I luckily, was in the front seat with my parents hanging my head out the window to get air to help stave off the car sickness I inevitably got on the winding roads. Since it was a mountain road, there were very few places to pull over. So when my brothers started panicking about our dog beginning to poop, there was no where for my father to pull the car over. My mother did what all mothers would do in the situation. She began looking for a tissue in her purse. Our dog, who had his head out the window enjoying the same fresh air I was, gave me a sheepish look as my brothers began shouting, "It's coming out." My mother found a tissue and handed it to the brother who was in direct line with out dog's butt and he was forced to catch the poop.

I recounted this story to my children between fits of giggling. After I finished, my son said, "You used to get car sick?" Then he said, "I still like the story about you killing a bird with a bow and arrow."

I don't think I'll ever let him read my blog.