A ticket to fun

Just got an email from Home Away, http://www.homeaway.com/. This happens to be a great site that lists homes and villas for rent all over the world. Listen up, all you honeymooners out there! Based on our previous travel info, and the time we, the Big Chill group, rented a Thanksgiving week house in Key West from them, I now receive periodic prompts to fuel my sense of wanderlust. "My ticket to Fourth of July fun," it read. So, first I must explain this Big Chill group; four couples we crashed onto the first tier of the wedding invitation list, even though they are not actually family but just as well might be. And then I'll proceed to explain why the word "fun" and the "Fourth" would never coexist in my world.

My husband and I met in high school, freshman year. His family migrated to NJ from the garment district in Brooklyn and mine came from the coal fields of Scranton, PA. It was friends at once and love by junior year; he was Nathan Detroit to my Adelaide. We did all the school plays and musical comedies; our little preppy clique was like Glee meets Revenge of the Nerds. Along with Nathan and Adelaide came: 1) Nicely Nicely (also known as Where in the World is Lyle); 2) Lt Brannigan, a sweetheart of a guy, we made a pact that if we weren't married by 40, we'd marry each other; 3) Rusty Charlie, my Junior Prom date, cause my cool future husband wasn't "into" proms; and then there is 4) the Hot Box MC, the guy who's big Italian family was adopted by my husband's mother (my MIL). All of these guys went to Woodstock together after high school. Not me.

We had broken up in college, besides I doubt I'd be allowed to go to Woodstock, period. I was living in Westchester County, and only married Nathan 31 years ago, after the very same MIL found me in town one day and physically brought me to him. "Here," she said, "please take him off my hands," or something like that. All the boys married southern girls, except for me - I'm the only original Yankee high school girl who happened to marry her sweetheart after 16 years! A person, could develop a cold!! Our little group, or gang, would meet every Thanksgiving for a week of frivolity. Each family was responsible for one night's meal and we all cooked on turkey day, dancing and carrying on way before the actual Big Chill movie ever premiered. After awhile, the children outnumbered the adults and we'd rent two beach houses on Holden Beach. So these kids are all pretty close, more like cousins. We are the last couple to marry off a child, and this year we welcomed our first communal grandchild! You can bet we have a blast at the Big Chill weddings. We always serenade the newlyweds.

My hubby, who if you recall happens to also be an ER doctor, always works in July. July is when all the newbie young doctors start working in the hospital; they cannot even write a prescription yet. Really. If you ever feel the need to be in an ER, try not to pick the month of July. We could never ever vacation in the summer, that would be like having no adult supervision in the hospital. This was fine with me. Because on the Fourth of July, 1949, when I was still in diapers and barely walking, my Mother was hit head on by a drunk driver outside of Wilkes Barre, PA. My Father had died a few months earlier from a brain tumor. Mother was seriously injured and hospitalized for months which is the reason I was sent to NJ to be raised by my parents' best friends, who became my foster parents. I can't remember the last time I knowingly got in a car on this holiday, not that I'm superstitious. Really, I'm not. I'm just 100% Irish and believe that luck can be a lady, or anything you make of it.