4th of July

Yesterday was the fourth of July, and it has always been a time of family,  I could tell you about Grandma Jackie's Flag cookies or her illegal fire works but the fourth always makes me think of the Cottage and your Great Grandma and Grandpa Stouten. As a kid we always spent at least part of the holiday weekend at the cottage on Stoney Lake.  The cottage itself was a little patriotic with it's Red upstairs and white basement and it was a beautiful place to be.  I would wake up in the morning to the smell of Grandpa Ed's bacon and buckwheat pancakes and after breakfast, I would play in the sand in front of the cottage while the adults sat in the sun and read.  Grandma Audrey made sure there were plenty of toys to play in the sand, and she would often bring me a can of real coke, (as a kid my parents only bought diet and we were not often allowed to have it so a can of Coke all to myself was a real treat.  The flavor of Regular Coke always brings Grandma Audrey's smiling face to mind.  She had a way of knowing the little things like that, that would make you feel special or at home, she was a wonderful hostess, and she loved having the whole family up to the cottage.)  Normally by the afternoon Kate would have talked Dad and Grandpa into a trip to Craigs Crusiers and we would ride go carts (yes if you ask Aunt Kate I would cheat and bump, but being the youngest I needed some advantage), and we would play ski-ball and end up at the batting cages.  Grandpa Ed could hit a baseball like no-one else I knew, they came at him so fast and the crack of his bat was so hard it would make me flinch.  By the time we would make it back to the cottage Aunt Sharon would be baking cake, she always let me help (I was really good at licking the whisk clean), we would decorate it with thick white icing and use strawberries and blueberries to make a flag on top.  Grandpa would skin bluegills and fry them up for dinner with fresh corn on the cob, (Grandpa Ed makes the best fried bluegills, light and crispy, I could eat a mountain of them, but I would get funny looks from Tom and Steve for putting Ketchup on them (Catsup as Grandma Audrey would say), and then when the night got chilly they would start up a fire in the big field-stone fire place and we would be sent to bed.  My dad would come tell us a bed time story about Katrina, Kelsinda and Taratana.  Somewhere in the mist of his deep soothing voice and the sweet smell of a real fire I would drift to sleep.  Happy fourth of July.