Independence Day

Tomorrow our little town of 2400 will grow for the festivities.  There will be a parade and a chicken barbecue and games and contests for the little ones.  Yes, a pie eating contest and sack races.  There will be fireworks at night (viewed from the local cemetery high on a hillside).  Jon and I will be skipping out of the daytime activities - lots of family memories there.  In years past there was always a big gathering at our house with family and friends.  The last one with Sumner in 2012 was one of the best days we had with her in the previous two years - we didn't know then it would be the last July 4th.  With our parents and sister-in-law and of course Sumner gone, it just isn't the same.  So we try to switch it up and do something else.  We're leaving early for the coast, hoping to get there before anyone is really up and crowding and home by noon.  

Tonight after midnight there's a tradition, some of the men in town ride around with a train whistle of some kind and all night long they drive the roads making it sound as though a train is coming through.  In the far reaches of a sleepy brain, off in the distance the whistle sounds it's expectant toll.