Holly Ridge Creations

The 4th of July

Moccasin Holler Style

My sister, brother and I were lucky enough to have cousins our ages. They were the "city" cousins, but we never held that against them. They lived about 40 miles from us and we spent a lot of time together. The 4th was really special. The big ole washtub got drug off the back porch and filled with ice and sodas...something we didn't get very often. And, on the 4th we got to drink as many as we wanted. Unfortunately, they usually ran out before we drank our fill.

Our celebration actually started on the 3rd. Daddy would dig a pit in the back yard and Mama would bring out one of the grills from the oven to make sure the pit was the right size. Mama would get some pork steaks and pork chops out of the freezer. These were  from one of the hogs that we had butchered the fall before.  We had our own chickens and I'll tellin' you, those critters knew what was comin'.  Thankfully, there were always a few that couldn't outrun Daddy!!  There was always plenty to cook over that pit. Mama made her famous potato salad, our aunt brought her delicious strawberry shortcake and between the two of them we had all the fixins. Daddy would gather in a big basket of roastin' ears from the corn field and fix up another tub of ice water for the watermelons our uncle would be bringing.

By late afternoon of  the 3rd, the city kinfolk had arrived and the games began. We had relay races around the house, played Annie Over, Jacks and snuck boloney or bacon out of the refrigerator, tied pieces to a long piece of twine and fished for crawdads in the big ditch across the road. This went on pretty much all night. Finally, when we were too tired to go on, we headed to the tent. Now this wasn't just your ordinary tent...it was special!! We gathered up pieces of rope and strung it between trees then went inside to the quilt stack and drug out enough quilts to make the sides of the tent with flaps hanging in the front and back and to cover the ground inside the tent. We lit up the old kerosene lantern and went to sleep listening to Mama and Aunt Edith talk about their lives.

We woke up bright and early, but Mama was already fixin' breakfast outside. While she had the bacon and sausage cookin', we would go to the henhouse and gather up the eggs. I think I liked breakfast better than the 4th of July dinner (that's lunch to you northerners).

Those days were filled with wondrous things...sodas, hand-churned ice cream, roasted marshmallows, swimmin' in Little River and so much love that you couldn't stir it with a stick.

excerpt from "Moccasin Holler Memoirs" (c)