July Flew By with Danahey on the Loose

 

 

Man, July blew by.

In some cases, literally, with monsoon winds and wetness — followed by a dry spell with more (temporary) silt islands popping up on the Fox River not far from where I live. My buddy Shay said we should have waded out there and claimed the newfound land for Ireland.

After a soggy Fourth, a baby drought preceded another soggy weekend at the end of the month. Because it’s been that kind of year. Which is to say, Seals & Crofts to the contrary, July wasn’t blowin’ jasmine through my mind. Smoke was, thanks to the wildfires elsewhere.

Pre-Fourth Stuff

Anyway, my July actually began in late June. Making my contribution to the semiquincentennial, I marched in my hometown’s pre-Fourth of July parade, which was held a full week before the Fourth of July.

Semiquincentennial is not to be confused with quinceañera. One is a 250th birthday party, the other a big celebration for when your Latino friends’ daughter turns 15. And that’s not the same thing as cancionera, which is a songstress.

But back to the Fourth of July parade in June. I liked that it was short and sweet. I rode on the back of a flatbed float at the invitation of a buddy and wound up throwing beads at and/or to parade-goers. Bead-throwing is in my skill set after having taken part in the Mardi Gras parade in St. Louis a time or two, thanks to my dearly departed buddy Mary Hendron. I miss her.

The parade lasted about an hour, which is the perfect length. Along the way, I saw that even alternative-type folks were feeling patriotic. They had their giant skeleton dressed as their really skinny version of Uncle Sam. Goth bless America!

 

 

The route ended at a park where a blues fest was taking place. I wanted to order food, but it would have been a 90-minute wait to get the pulled chicken sandwich. I kid you not. The chicken wasn’t ready when the festival opened.

That night, Tom, his brother Mark and I went to the Hideaway Brew Garden in Hoffman Estates to hear a Pink Floyd cover band. Well, we sat on a hill overlooking the venue so my pals could smoke cigars. After all, Pink Floyd has a song about that.

The next afternoon, I met Best Fest Buddy Tom’s grandkids on the festival grounds. They badgered me (just slightly) to get face paintings and cartoon sketches of themselves. That felt like a very American summertime holiday thing to do, even if it did set me back $75. Hey, the young art guy even gave me a discount — and I tipped him for being so patient with the kids.

 

 

The Actual Fourth of July Weekend

As for the actual Fourth of July weekend, it was mostly a washout.

A midday downpour July 3 dampened my trip to get an All-American Chicago-style hot dog followed by a stop at the gym.

I had a ticket that night for a drum corps show in Rockford and saw the rain was supposed to return in the evening. So I messaged the folks running the show to see if it was still going to happen. They claimed their weather source said it was going to clear up. I had my doubts. Still, I told my pals from Rockford with whom I was going to the show I would visit either way, if just to catch up and have dinner.

Well, dinner went fine at a nice Mexican place, Lucha Cantina. But on the way to the high school football stadium where the drum corps show was to happen, my two pals received a message that the show was being delayed because of an incoming storm.

We all parked in the designated lot at a megachurch near the school and waited. Storm clouds hovered. Apparently there was a tornado watch, too. And all these people were waiting in their cars, like ducks on a concrete pond.

Then my friends got another message that the show was delayed once more. The rains came. We headed to a McDonald’s a couple miles away to wait it out and to try the return of the All-American deep-fried apple pie. It took awhile to get them, but it didn’t matter. A message arrived that the show had been canceled.

 

 

Oh well. We sat around a bit in the McDonald’s — which is across the road from Shogun, a Japanese restaurant in Rockford, a city where they also have a Japanese garden. The three of us were pretty much the only three in the place. We swapped stories, much like being back in high school — which was a very pleasant way to spend a Friday night.

The manager seemed like a nice fellow who probably wanted to close since it was so slow due to the storm. He checked on us a couple times, much like one should check on senior citizens.

On my drive home down the tollway, it rained hard again for a bit. That’s always fun, with drivers either going way under the speed limit or reckless jackasses going 85 mph weaving in and out of lanes.

Oh. The show had a no-refund policy. I went on social media before bed that Friday and learned that the host corps, Phantom Regiment, was offering a 20% discount on their merchandise because of the cancellation. They also wound up offering a discount on tickets to a July 25 drum corps show in DeKalb. How thoughtful.

The Actual Fourth of July Weekend, the Sequel

The actual Fourth of July was a rainy day, too. So much so that a good many towns had decided early in the day to cancel or postpone any events they had planned. However, in East Dundee, the show being shot off from a footbridge over the Fox was still going to take place.

I went to Tom’s brother’s house for dinner and stayed later than I thought I would. Still, from my house I walked over the Main Street bridge in my town, which provides a good view of the footbridge, hoping to catch the end of the fireworks. There were a few dozen people standing along the bridge — and some preteen idiot kids riding their electric bikes on the sidewalk and doing wheelies down the street.

Turns out, the display had been delayed. It didn’t start until around 10:15 p.m. It went off in fits and starts, as wet fireworks are wont to do. Most people wandered or drove home before the finale, in part because it was tough to know what was actually the finale.

 

 

On my walk back, I saw and heard big-ass booms and fireworks being shot off by households — with nary a police siren to be seen heading to check on the nonsense.

Turns out one of the displays was going off in the street, pretty much right in front of my house. My downstairs neighbor had just returned home around the same time I returned from my walk. JFC, as the kids say.

As people were driving home from the professional display, there was a short line of cars, to boot, trying to maneuver around the mayhem. My neighbor and I sat toward the back of my house to keep an eye on the show.

A driver got into an argument with the people who live across the street from me. Some knuckleheaded woman kept taunting him to call the police. Some remnants remained on fire on the street. A not-too-bright teenage girl cautioned others not to throw water on the fire as it would make it burn even more.

Yup. These weren’t geniuses. Thankfully, things calmed down, and all was quiet from that gathering by 11:30 p.m. at the latest.

Oh. I did find shrapnel on my driveway and front stoop. I kept some of it as a souvenir of the semiquincentennial. And I wondered if my homeowners insurance would have covered the damages if anything worse had happened.

Take Us Out to the Ball Game

In keeping with the All-American July theme, Tom and I took his three grandkids and two of their cousins to a Kane County Cougars game July 12. The kids won free tickets through taking part in the local library’s summer reading program.

That was nice, because even minor league baseball ain’t cheap these days. Parking was $25. Snow cones and Dippin’ Dots were $8. A bouncy house-laden play area would have been another $5 per kid — half price on Sundays. Such a deal!

But hey. A fellow scribe told me she and a pal went to see the Savannah Bananas Broadway-meets-baseball game at Wrigley, where their tickets were a relatively reasonable $40 each. However, their order of a bottle of water and a hard seltzer was $30.

Making it worth our trip, though, was that the mid-grandkid wound up retrieving a foul ball. At his first game, mind you.

The kid has a math mind and noticed right off the bat (pun intended) that a good number of foul balls were heading to the upper deck above us. He kept intent watch, particularly after one ball early in the game wound up careening down maybe 100 feet or so, if that, from where our seats were.

Later in the game, his chance came. Another foul ball headed to the upper deck. The kid kept watch as it made its way back to our level. It bounced a bit in a relatively empty section to our left. He scurried his way through the first-base-side bleacher-style seats to retrieve the ball.

People clapped for him. That was pretty awesome.

 

 

On top of that, the Cougars let people run the bases after the game.

Alas, the game dragged on, as the home team blew a three-run lead. Yup, the Chicago Dogs of Rosemont scored five runs in the top of the ninth to win the game, 11-9. It was a hot day, too, but we all mostly managed to keep our cool. And we figured out you have to traipse through the stadium to the bullpen in the outfield to get to run the bases.

Runners even received Sonic coupons and could head to get autographs from the team mascots after that. We used our coupons on the way home, too, ending our fine All-American July day with kiddie meals. Sure, it took them an extra 10 minutes or so to get the order right. It gave me time to visit the nearby Aldi to buy some wine.

This is a pretty nice place to end this post. Sure, I’ve whined a bit. But that’s an All-American pastime, too.

 

 

Past July

Speaking of, the name of the baseball stadium in Geneva where the Kane County Cougars play is Northwestern Medicine Field. Ask me about the phone system that that hospital system has or how calls from them can come up on your mobile as potential spam. While that goes along with my All-American July Whine Club, it’s a topic for a different day.

August, though, is off to a mostly okay start, with Home Depot kid crafts, taking in the new Spider-Man movie, a pool party the kids attended per the reading program and a National Night Out out my way where a Chicago Police Department helicopter did a flyover, you could don goggles to simulate drunk driving a golf cart and a Toasty Cheese chicken sandwich was a tasty $20.

There’s so much to do as the daylight fades to fall, eh?