Fourth of July is always a great time down at the Establishment South. The Captain and Wonder Mom are up in Vermont and they leave their southern compound for use by us kiddies as we see fit. It’s usually a circus, albeit a mighty fun one, but things were a little differen this year.
First, it was more quiet at The Establishment South this year. Only The Rockette and I were at the house. Slug Brother now lives with his girlfriend, so they stay at her place. The Rockette and I had only brought 2 guests total - The Donkey and Mr. Colorado, respectively, for the weekend. Of course there is always some sort of party at the place involving all of our friends, Slug Brother’s friends, and even people we aren’t friends with. But all in all I must say this year was pretty tame, other than the Jenga/Beer Pong night and the 4AM pool invasion.
Another Favorite Thing down there for The 4th is going out on The Mack’s boat to watch the big fireworks display over the water. Well last month, Dr. The Mack (The Mack’s pappy) sold Miami Vice (the boat) with little warning. So this meant that our crew would not be watching fireworks over the causeway from the water this time… sigh. It is always entertaining to be on the boat because you can be so close to the display that ash rains on you and you feel the explosions pound in your chest. And of course, there is always that one shell that detonates too close to the ground, sending passengers of the boats nearest the fireworks barge jumping into the water to avoid getting hit by the sparks, while some poor palm tree that can’t jump in the water catches fire. I am not a Vietnam Vet but I have to believe that the sight of the fireworks mixed with burning palm trees over the beach must bring back some awful memories for those in the crowd who are vets.
Anyhow, with no boat to watch the fireworks on the Causeway, we got creative as to where to see the displays. The Aryan Couple called us up with an idea, they wanted to go watch one display on a baseball field near where they lived – The Mack was with them, and they could walk down the trail from where they lived. We decided we would meet them there. Our group could park at Soccer Mullet’s Irish Bar and walk down the trail to the fields.
As with everything our crew does, there was a glitch. The display started at 9 and by the time we parked the cars, it was 9:15. We did manage to see the finale of the display, but the other half of our group – the contingent walking from The Aryan Couple’s house – were not there for any of it. We decided they must be on their way (to nothing, now that the pyrotechnics were over) so we all turned and walked back up the trail toward their house in the hope of meeting them on the way. It was dark but they soon came into view down the about 75 yards from us. Someone in our crowd commented that it was like the Sharks versus the Jets – and someone else (maybe The Rockette?) said “oh, we need a Dance-off!” Talk about something different for Fourth of July weekend down south!
There were eight people on our side – Supercool, Slug Brother and his girlfriend, The Rocket and The Donkey, Car Guy, Mr. Colorado and Yours Truly. I have no idea how this happened, but as soon as the Dance-off was mentioned, all eight of us started snapping our fingers as we walked closer to the other three. Supercool started calling the choreography and all of us lined up single file.
With 30 yards between the two groups, Supercool yells “Liz go right, I’ll go left, everyone split accordingly!” We did. We could hear The Female Aryan yelling to her crowd “it’s a Dance-off! We’re getting our butts kicked!” With 15 yards between the groups, Supercool called for us to “do a 360 spin… on three… one, two, three!” We all spun.
We were all laughing so hard on our side that we had no idea what – if anything – the other side was doing to compete. By this time, the groups had met up and it was decided that our side totally won the Fourth of July Dance-off. This has the potential to become a bigger event than the Fourth Of July Horseshoe Invitational... especially if SuperCool keeps up his choreography skills.
.png)
