It’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight

Summers in Roundup, Montana, were hot. But firecrackers, sparklers and things that go “bang” in the night, seemed to make the heat tolerable.

My first memories of Fourth of July celebrations were the parade of floats and horses down Main Street. We generally were sitting or standing in the shade of the trees that lined Main Street by the Catholic Church. It was only a block away from where my Grandma Anderson lived.

The highlight, of course, was collecting all the candy that was thrown from the floats…and the firemen squirting us with water at the end of the parade.

As I got older, I played the tuba on the band float…and then I went away to college.

Memories of fireworks always involved the rivalry between Black Cat and Zebra firecrackers. My brother Randy swore that one of them was better than the other. Whatever he liked, I had to like the other.

Randy was an ant hill’s worst enemy when it came to firecrackers. There was one humungous ant hill up in the first hills not far from our house. One summer, Randy nearly annihilated all the ants by placing firecrackers in all their little holes in the ant hill and then watching them explode.

Rodeos were also a part of Fourth of July celebrations. My parents didn’t go to the rodeos but my aunts and uncles did. One of our neighbors – Donny Tomlin – was one of the cowboys competing. Later on, one of my classmates – Wayne Kelly – competed at the local level. Knowing some of the cowboys made it more interesting. But the part of the rodeo I liked best was visiting with people and eating the grilled hamburgers.

We have a rodeo on the Fourth of July in Mandan and I’ve never been to it. I guess the memories of the scorching heat and waiting and waiting for the next rider at the Roundup rodeo took some of the fun away.

The other thing that I remember about the Fourth was the family picnics. We always seemed to be involved in a picnic. When I really young, the picnic might have been at Grandma Anderson’s. It would involve my aunts and uncles…but mostly it involved my cousins. And in those day, my cousins in Roundup were as thick as ticks on a dog’s back in June. When Grandma died in 1972, the picnic migrated to our yard. Later on, more and more people got invited and the picnic was held at the city park.

Still, what I remember about the Fourth was that it didn’t take a lot of money to have a lot of fun.

It was a nice holiday…a good time to feel patriotic, eat a little food and watch a parade.

Now that I’ve grown up and moved away from Roundup, I think of these things with some nostalgia. The parade in my adopted hometown of Mandan lasts about two hours long and is even broadcast on a local TV station. The rodeo is also a much bigger event and draws cowboys from several states and Canada. Even the fireworks shot off after the rodeo are much bigger and brighter…they can be seen from miles around.

Still, you don’t forget about your childhood…how good the watermelon tasted, the smell of a burning punk and sitting on a bale of hay playing the tuba in the hometown parade. Those days are gone…and some of the people are gone, too….but the memories live on.