1976, the bicentennial year, i was hit in the temple with a firecracker; it landed at my feet and went off, and i was deaf for about ten minutes. a small price to pay, compared to what i'd feel if it went off right there at my temple, or say, if i was a soldier in a war, and they were pitching more serious kinds of things. the country was born in this kind of stuff, they like to say, and don't ever forget it, we were born by the gun and it's been one explosion after another ever since. i'm not knockin' it so much as just getting used to it, as i'm moving to texas & all, & a gun culture's not always a bad thing, as long as everyone's pointing it in the right direction, namely away from me.

i won't elaborate on that at all, except to say this is a very dry year here, the grass is crackling, trees are dying, and the dry season's just started, so they cancelled the fireworks altogether, due to the danger, and it's mighty quiet. sure i can see fireworks on facebook, you have this kind of national experience these days, i've got friends in new orleans, seattle, you name it,lots of these places are having them and people are putting them right up. but not here. here, we stayed home, stayed out of the 100 degrees (it's been that way for over a week, and due to stay that way for another week) - planned an epic trip soon, to little rock, dallas, and lubbock that will involve a van, a moving van hauling a car, two dogs, three cats, three boys. texas, apparently, is not 100, it's mild down there. it's just here that it's excessive, killing just about everything but the tomatoes. nobody's buying the house, how

now i happen to know some folks are going to go shoot fireworks off anyway, and it's really a case where their patriotism and need to set little fires runs right up against their civic duty to not endanger the region, but as i said, it's pretty quiet here and i'm hoping the latter is winning this particular battle. i say, do us all a favor and put a lid on it. i've seen a few mishaps and that's enough.

spent some time publicizing e pluribus (see below) and that was a good use of my day; it was always my plan to publish it on the fourth each year and this was maybe the first year i actually pulled it off, partly because i'm home a lot and i could. i've been packing, but i'm also retired and i can make my own schedule; when i had a minute, and when this computer had its wireless connection (it's a little spotty these days) - and though i didn't get much else done, i have that at least to show for the day. that and a little packin', so to speak.

it's that time when the little ones are real excited, bless their hearts, they have no idea what they're getting into. neither do we, really, but we're doing it, causing it, uprooting them, and they'll be the first to adjust but we'll make it ok too, i'm sure. my wife's dad's people are from down around west texas, and my own parents live out that way, so i'm sure before long we'll know folks and everything will be ok. we actually know a few already, we happen to know it's right welcoming, downright friendly. i try to talk myself into it, though that's not hard, summers here have been about as bad as they could get, and this one's worse than ever - the teasing storms have started already, where it gets real muggy, and these clouds come over, and you even hear thunder, but the ground crackles, trees dry up, and you're parchin'. i'm tired of it, already.

so, jersey city, d.c., i've seen your fireworks, it's the good thing about a small world. maybe the whole nation can have a single display, over some sea somewhere, and the rest of us could sit in our soft chairs, like mine here, and go "ooh" and "aah" and experience violent explosions vicariously, and save money and lives in the process. i get less and less attached to the various things here - the drive, the workplace e-mails, the grass turning brown everywhere - and want to be online, where i feel my friends are in a kind of suspense, all over the world, always doing something different, more or less free of this geographical trap, where we're all prisoners of some sort, having to be in one place all the time, or keep coming back to one anyway. as a rambler of sorts, one who had a hard time settling anywhere, even for a little while, eighteen years has been a long haul, and i'm tired.