Summer Lovin' Week 1

"Had Me a Blast"

Never one to turn down a good song title or lyric from Grease, I have dubbed my little summer photo essay project / attempt to better appreciate my surroundings during this unfortunate of seasons, "Summer Lovin'." My plan is for a new installment each week until the temperature drops enough to comfortably cover my upper arm fat wear long sleeves again. Or Halloween. Whichever Global Warming allows to happen first.

For Week One we borrow from the ever-glorious musical movie Grease once again and pay tribute to the 4th of July. (Yes, I'm behind a week. Already.)

In Nashville, if you're into crowds and the smell of sweaty polyester, one option is to go downtown to the river and watch the fireworks. All smart-assed-ness aside, my town does a great job with July 4th - in part because the whole thing is scored live and in person by the Nashville Symphony. Our symphony sounds fantastic under normal circumstance, but sounding fantastic while playing on a barge, in the heat, on the river, while being bombarded with bugs and having rockets launched behind their heads takes a certain level of skill.

The 4th of July is also a fun time in my family. My mother and stepfather live in the same part of the city as I do, but even closer to downtown, so it's a good spot for the 4th. But it's also their anniversary. And while they would probably enjoy going somewhere just the two them, they usually have various family and friends over instead. Some might question their logic, but I think its because they know my brother and I both have keys to their house and would just have people over anyway, so really it's more of an insurance policy on their part than anything...

To see the fireworks it's usually best to walk around the corner from their house - or even a couple of blocks over to our church. Last year it was so unbelievably, miserably, and disgustingly hot (at 9:30 at night!) that when asked if everyone was ready to head out to watch the festivities, my pregnant sister-in-law and I said "Meh. We'll just sit here and watch it on TV." But this year, THIS YEAR, the weather was not only gorgeous, but the powers that be decided to launch the fireworks from a little further down the river. Perhaps an unsuspecting tuba player was singed last year. I don't know. I just know that I stepped out onto my mother's front porch and into a perfect view of Independence Day as I'm sure our founding fathers and mothers intended. No traffic. No shirt-less mullet-ed men. No coolers to drag around. No smell of carnival food. No sweat. God bless America.