July 5

I'm always so glad to see July 5! I don't care if it's Monday, Tuesday or--you get the idea. It doesn't matter what day July 5 is. If Mr. B is alive, unhurt and well, then it is a good day.

Explanation: He arrived home on June 28 and on July 4 his aunt invited us down to her place near Harrisburg, PA. She had tickets for us to go to Hershey that day to a big park where we would go to a Kitty Wells concert.

July 4 started out well. She made a lovely breakfast and Mr. B and I spent the day wandering around the park. We were so much in love that everything was beautiful. Except the roller coaster! It was not beautiful and no, thank you, I did not need a second ride on that demon thing. And to this day, I still do not do rides at amusement parks. I wanted Mr. B to think I was a tough, sassy Texas Rebel with a big hair do. That roller coaster came close to turning me into a whiny, whimpering bag of bones and it messed up my hair. If I'd known a roller coaster was on the agenda that day I would have used a heck of a lot more of the hair lacquer that morning.

Then the day ended and his cousins asked us to go swimming with them and their wives/girlfriends. Now I'd spent my whole life swimming in Pennington Creek in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, so that was no problem for this country girl. So I donned my bathing suit, took along a towel so I could sit on the shore and got ready for an evening of watching my hot fiancé those tight fittin' trunks.

He climbed the tree at the edge of the water right behind his cousins. I remember him asking, "Is it deep enough to dive?"

And they answered, "Sure, it is. We do it all the time."

Now the difference is that they were about five and a half feet tall and he was well over six feet. And they were skimming the water not diving straight in. His feet were still sticking out of the water when his head made contact with a nice big flat rock on the bottom of the creek.

We went straight to the emergency room where they put thirteen stitches in the top of his head and told him to report to the hospital near his home town the next morning. After a long, painful night we followed orders and he was admitted for traction for the next ten days.

Now move ahead one year. We made the decision to move back to Oklahoma for him to go to college and we arrived on July 4. That meant that Mr. B met his mother-in-law for the first time on July 4.

He survived both but since then we celebrate the holiday very quietly. I'm glad all stores are closed and that the children are very busy with their own hoop-las! That means we can stay home all day and wait for the holiday to pass.

So far; so good!!