Walnuts on My Windshield #42

July 3, 2006

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, but this year, we celebrated it early. I still don't know why Forsyth (our county seat, about nine miles from here) did the Glorious Fourth on June 17, but they did. However, we wouldn't have even known about it and certainly wouldn't have attended it, had it not been for AIM.

For the past several years, we have gone to the fireworks display down in Rockaway Beach on Lake Taneycomo. Let me tell you a little bit about Rockaway Beach. In 1913, the Powersite Dam on the White River created Lake Taneycomo. Rockaway Beach grew up as a tourist resort beside that lake, which was popular for boating, swimming, and skiing. In 1959, Table Rock Dam was constructed 22 miles up-river, creating Table Rock Lake. Since that time, the water in Lake Taneycomo has come from the bottom of Table Rock Lake, and while it's a perfect habitat for trout, it is too cold for swimmers or skiers.

I think that Table Rock Dam was probably the beginning of the end of Rockaway Beach. By the time we moved here in 1996, it was basically one three-block Main Street along the waterfront, lined with dumpy shops and tiny fifties-looking motels in various stages of dilapidation. Back up the hill from Main Street (which has no stoplights or even a stop sign, probably because there is so little traffic there) are a few small neighborhoods of mostly very old stone (read: crumbling) homes and trailers. Although we did look at one house it Rockway when we were preparing to move to Branson, we have learned that it is not a place we would care to live.

In addition to Rockaway Beach proper, there are two adjacent communities - one upstream and one down - called, respectively, Merriam Woods and Venice on the Lake. These are nice names for areas that may have held quaint vacation homes in the 1940s, but which now hold a large percent of the sources of crime for our fair county. These two "towns" are known for their drug dealers, sex offenders, etc. The population is largely transient and not really into vacationing, if you know what I mean. I guess you could say that if there is a dark side to most glamour, then the Rockaway Beach area is the dark side of Branson.

But it's only five miles from home and it has an annual fireworks display. Now, there is a HUGE, and I do mean indescribably enormous, fireworks display in Springfield. It is called "I Love America" and it is put on each year by James River Assembly (known simply as "James River" in these parts), one of the largest churches in a city known for its churches. Many jokes have been told about the number of churches per capita in Springfield. For some denominations, it's Tulsa; for some it's Springfield, and we will leave it at that. The "I Love America" fireworks display was actually held on James River's property for a number of years. They have a huge parking lot, as you might imagine. It has now moved to a large field in the north part of town, and I think it has developed into an all-day affair, much like a fair, with the fireworks at the end.

We have never gone to "I Love America," although we do love America very much. One year we went to the Sunday night 4th of July affair at C of O (a.k.a. Hard Work U) about 20 minutes south of our home. At the College of the Ozarks, all the students work on campus to fund their tuition and/or room and board. The college has a working dairy, nursery, day-care center, hospital, etc. It is a highly effective program and it seems to turn out some great citizens. We have heard many great things about C of O through the years, and, being very Christian and very patriotic, the college also has a very nice all-Sunday-evening thing every year on or about the 4th. We have never gone to the whole she-bang, but that one year, we did join a few hundred lazy souls who didn't want to venture down into the throngs on the campus and simply pulled off on the shoulder of V Hwy., unloaded lawn chairs, and waited for the very satisfying display at dusk. (After the final bombardment, we threw the chairs into the van, scooted back onto the pavement, and made a quick getaway, before the masses pouring forth from the college's "Gates of Opportunity" could catch us. = )

That was 2002, but for the past three years, we have gone to Rockaway Beach to see the fireworks, mainly because it's close to home. We have learned that you can't park down along the lake - the locals either want money or have you towed - but you must park in one of the "neighborhoods" up the hill. So, we have developed a plan. Scott parks up on a seldom-used street, which is parallel to Main Street, and seemingly 500 feet up. We each bring a bag chair and we always forget the flashlights. We then hike down, through a small woods and a grassy slope to the rock wall behind the bank. The rest of the family jumps down, but I, being less bouncy (or in some senses, perhaps more bouncy) than they, walk all the way around to the bank parking lot. I inevitably end up holding Andrew's hand, and he inevitably cannot possibly carry his small bag chair, so I inevitably end up carrying his as well as mine, forcing him to carry my water bottle, which he inevitably MUST drink from because he is SO tired and SO thirsty that he is going to die.

We then straggle along Main Street, dodging between people drinking (probably not coke) and smoking (not necessarily tobacco) to get to the spot along the water side sidewalk that we have deemed to be close enough to see the fireworks, but far enough away not to be bombarded by the rock music that always seems to blare near the launch point. We sit through the fireworks, Andrew drinks all my water, and then, when it's over, we hustle back across the street, down the sidewalk a couple blocks, and try (now in the dark) to find that stupid path behind the bank. Scott always finds it quickly and leads the big kids up to the van. Andrew scampers ahead into who knows what might be lurking in the dark in that high grass. I stumble on blindly, my night vision being considerably less than stellar, with (most probably) two bag chairs and an empty water bottle, sweating and muttering that there has GOT to be an easier way to watch fireworks.

We always get home from Rockaway feeling like we need to take a shower - physically and emotionally - although the fireworks are nice.

This year was different! The second week of June was Branson's homecoming week for Vietnam veterans. AIM is a very patriotic ministry. Its founders were married on the 4th of July! So, AIM had five presentations at various venues that week. It was a week of much driving (thank you, Katie!) much laundering of things black, and much applying and removing of make-up. The fifth and final presentation for the week was to be at 7:30 PM at Shadow Rock Park in Forsyth. I didn't know what the deal was, or why we were presenting there, but our girls said they had heard that it was Forsyth's 4th of July celebration. I thought, "sure it is. What county seat in its right mind would celebrate the 4th of July on the 17th of June?!?!?" My children must have been mistaken.

In any case, the non-AIM half of the family was going to go watch the AIM half do their thing. The kids went in the carpool with Katie an hour or so earlier, and we came about 7:15 in the other van. I was astounded. The whole arena area was packed with people, cars, booths, and bunting. It really WAS a 4th of July celebration! We took our seats near the bleachers and, with the other families of AIM members, waited for our kids to present.

We had quite a while to wait. First, we experienced the mandatory 11 year old girl dressed like a cowgirl singing some crying-in-your-beer song about her lover leaving her. We experienced an older teen who, frankly, did not play the flute very well. There was a teen emcee who actually sang pretty well if you like county music, which I don't. There were squeals of audio feedback and plump ladies announcing that we only had seven more minutes to enter the raffle for the four-wheeler to be given away soon. It began to mist lightly. Not good. We had a few more musical numbers mixed in with a couple of political speeches- one good and one not so good. I remember the name of the latter, but not the former, which is bad, because they weren't running against each other (so I can't use the process of elimination). The primaries are coming up soon, and in these parts, we elect all our officials in the primaries. I guess I'd better get on the stick and do a little political research. . .

But finally, our AIM students took the stage, and they told it like it was. They did a song called "Fallen, Not Forgotten" and I just lost it. It was about a boy whose dad took him each year to the Veteran's Day parade and taught him what it meant. So the kid grew up and joined the army. And then he was killed in action. Then we see Jesus holding this dead boy who loved his family and died for his country. And the crowd went wild. Our students presented a bunch of overtly Christian patriotic songs, and the crowd loved it, and I cried and was so proud of them. These kids really do understand what God and America and family and sacrifice are all about. They get it, and through mime, they communicated it to the audience. They did Carman's "America Again," and it doesn't get much better than that. So, I was totally pumped up and proud and a little damp around the eyes and also around the shoulders.

But, it turned out, and I didn't know this in advance, our students were the grand finale of the whole thing! They were on right before the fireworks! What an awesome thing, for Jesus to be exalted so publicly. Everyone was there, because they were all waiting for the fireworks, and they all got to witness this great presentation, by a bunch of kids who never said a word.

So, when that was all over, we simply turned our chairs around and watched the fireworks. It was great. It was SO different from Rockaway Beach. At least where we (and the vast majority of the folks) were stationed, there was no profanity. No one was drunk. Very few people were smoking. It was a family environment, instead of a "party" environment. What a refreshing change of pace! I don't know when Forsyth will celebrate Independence Day in 2007, but I will find out and we will plan to be there when they do.

Until Next Time,
Patty

Epilogue: We had a quiet 4th at home. Scott was supposed to be in China the first two weeks of July. I had already decided I was not going to take the kids to Rockaway without him; we were just going to be home and let the boys shoot off fireworks in the yard. Scott's trip was cancelled and he was here. He tried without success to gather a crowd, but by then, most of our friends had other plans. He grilled brats, chicken, and kielbasa for us, but it started raining, and he and the boys had to move the grilling process from the back yard to the front porch. We joined the meat with baked beans and watermelon, it all tasted great, and the boys shot everything that would burn into the stratosphere.

From My Bookpile:

Looking for Alaska by Peter Jenkins, rank 10. This audiobook was simply excellent. Peter (of Walk Across America fame) wanted to write a book about Alaska. So, he moved there for a little over a year and went everywhere and did everything, so that he could write from the perspective of a participant in, not a spectator of, Alaskan life. He met, talked with, worked with, played with, and in a couple cases, lived with, real Alaskans - folks who were either born there or have lived there many years. If you are the least bit interested in Alaska as it is, and not just as tourists see it, I think you will really like this book.

This Week's Quote:

"When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat." ~ Mark Twain

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