I’ve always wanted to be part of history. Alas, I have done nothing to earn it. However, this 4th of July I had the pleasure of running around the house of my son, Will, and my daughter-in-law, Kirsten, yelling, “The British are coming, the British are coming, again!” And they were. There were no red coats to observe, and, in truth, we had a single genuine British gentleman, Jon Wilson, a dutiful subject of her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. The company included his American wife, Lorna, born in the U.S.A. and three lovely and talented daughters, Hannah, Emma, and Charlotte, who are half and half. Thank God, there were no horses mixed in with cowboys riding and yelling, “To arms!” Even Paul Revere had to borrow a horse.
For those who are new readers, I have a problem with horses. I took good care of Bill’s two, but they hated me and bucked me off, bit me often, and pushed me around for 22 years. While I was polite to them, I would have let the British have Boston if I had had to ride one.
Lorna has family in Santa Fe and has been friends with Kirsten since they went to school together back east. Will and Kirsten also have three daughters, so this holiday was especially colorful as there are new toys for teens now. I do not know the exact name, but it works with controls held in the hand and no wires. Figures come on a television screen, music plays and the participants’ dance. After a huge meal of BBQ from Rudy’s we all needed to “shake it off.” American Idol should have come to see this. They were as good as any I have seen. Grandma Anne Meyer, Kirsten’s Mom, and I decided to be spectators only. The time is past for us to “shake our booties.”
If you wished, you could hold the dance controllers and go to war with boxes on the screen while you moved. I remember the first computers that had aliens to blast. Bill wore a callous on his thumb killing them. I questioned if this computer habit was a good idea since he actually flew an F-16 fighter jet. He acknowledged that they should put the game in the jet to practice while they flew over the Atlantic. My response, “No comment.”
Jon and Lorna both speak Arabic and are going to be with a U.N.E.S.C.O. site in Saudi Arabia. U.N.E.S.C.O. means United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. This group was founded after WWII in hopes of contributing to peace and security.
While Mom and Dad are busy in the Middle East, Hannah, will be working on her masters, while Emma will start at Oxford this fall in England. Bringing up the rear, Charlotte will be attending a special boarding school close to Bath. The real Bath, in England started by the Romans with terrific mosaic murals and hot water. The Christians came with fabulous stain glass in towering churches. We ate, in Bath, an incredible dessert, Golden Bars. We should have insisted on the recipe and added it to the Declaration of Independence demands! Not a large town, Bath is filled with tourists from around the world.
Guess what? The British have a fireworks festival held in the fall, from November 5, 1605. It is called Guy Fawkes Day. Briefly, Guy Fawkes was a bad dude who was going to blow up Parliament. Guy had powder kegs and was really going for it, hoping to catch King James I in one large wipe out. Fawkes and his buddies were caught and executed. For 400 years, the Brits have burned effigies of Fawkes, lit bonfires and set off fireworks. The one great thing that Bill and I have always admired about the British is their accent. If we say, “Howdy,” they say, “How do you do.” Maybe that’s why they once owned most of the world. Those charming British. Roaring Mouse, ta ta!
