July 4th.....Independance Day....post something if you want...

As a child, I wore blue jeans, a red shirt and a white belt at a Bicentennial celebration in Rota, Spain and I rocked it.

 

One great thing about growing up in the panhandle was the proximity to Alabama and their just over the border fireworks stores. Just an amazing selection and a lot of it illegal in Florida. Thankfully I still have all my fingers.

 

Fireworks scares the crap out of my dog.

 

Amen! Somewhere around the Gulf Shores exit there was a huge firework building. Not. Stand. A year long always open building. Fun times!
Happy Birthday to the greatest nation on earth! Yer not perfect, but a whole site better than the rest!

 

Yeah man there are tons of them. Huge warehouses like Sams Club. It was a dream come true as a child wandering around in those places.

 

Another reason to get family together.

I love it when our son and grandkids come for some burgers, dogs, tater salad, baked beans, and numerous desserts.

And for my son and many others a paid day off work.

 

I sometimes wonder what my parents were thinking.. and then I remember the look in my dad’s eyes when we went in! He was a 13 year old boy again.

 

I had a buddy that owned (has since passed away) a fireworks business. He showed me what he paid for FWs and retail. Mark up is huge. He literally made a living on the 4th and New Year’s Eve. The rest of the year was gravy.

He sold to me just over wholesale. Boy were those the good ole days.

 

Gonna be marinated brats on the grill tomorrow. Trying a new recipe I'm interested in.

Ohh . . . and some exceptional whiskey. This JD 12 year is outstanding.

 

I post this every year, but the copy of the Declaration of Independence thought to have been signed on July 4 1776 has actually been lost to history. It may have been destroyed in line with secrecy laws at the time.
It may have been destroyed in the process of creating copies to be sent out to the colonies, those copies are known as the Dunlap Broadsides, there are 26 known to survive, almost half of those have been discovered in the last 75 years, including one in 2008. The last one that went up for sale about 20 years ago went for 8 million, but heaven knows what one would sell for today as most are not in private hands.
But the romanticism in all of this, is just it imagine if that original survived and was found. What it would mean culturally, what it would be worth etc. Given that one of the last broadsides found was at a flea market behind a 4 dollar painting, keep your eyes out.

Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence - Wikipedia.

 

I always liked that one of the most expensive autographs for collectors, in the history of all autographs, is a signer on the Declaration. Who? Button Gwinett. For collectors who want the autograph of all the original signers, his is the most rare. I think there are something like less than 50 confirmed of his. The last one sold for several million

 

One summer during college I worked in Spartanburg, South Carolina and attended a local Baptist church. The Sunday after the Fourth of July, we came into the sanctuary and there was scaffolding all over the place. It was clearly in the middle of remodeling.

The pastor got up and apologized for all the scaffolding still being there. He said the plasterers told him they were going to takeoff the fourth and return on the fifth and finish the plastering. The pastor said it turned out they had too many fifths on the fourth and were too plastered to do anything.

 

Nice - I have not heard that one and I'm a sucker for Home Free. Lee Greenwood sounds great in that recording too.

 

I can't eat hot dogs (or other processed meat) because of gout. I hate fireworks because of ear trouble. Relatives who used to visit for any holiday have gone to that big fireworks display in the sky (meaning beyond the Earth's atmosphere) or else to that plain old fire down below. IOW, as far as celebrating is concerned (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, you name it), bah humbug!