Explosives and family bonds

July 4th, like most major holidays, is a chance for my extended family to get together and enjoy each other. Mountains of food, rivulets of booze, the best old school music, and hilariously bad dancing; the women gossiping and catching up on each other's lives; and doting on the yearly crop of babies are usually the order of the day.

I may have mentioned this before, but the controlled chaos of my family's holiday get-togethers is soul-soothing. Not just because my extended family represents what black America is when its families work to support each other, but because my folks really know how to throw down. Dad and my uncle stay up all night roasting a whole hog--a tradition begun by my culinary wizard grandfather and carried on after his death. Side dishes are represented by only the best of southern cooking: greens, cornbread, fresh cracklins, sweet potato pie...and sometimes my out-of-place but well-liked couscous salad. Holidays with my family remind me of why the family unit is so important: because we are reminded that our best times are spent with the people who love us unconditionally. And because we know our relatives can cook their asses off.

But what makes the Fourth of July unique is the fireworks. Not the big show the city puts on after sunset, but the bundles of home fireworks purchased at old gas stations and defunct hardware stores. My husband and my 14-year-old nephew have forged a bond that transcends race and age: they are friends and brothers in explosives. When Rob and I come home for the Fourth, they plan the day, eagerly looking for the best deals on firecrackers and screeching rockets, then rush back to my parents' house where the two of them blow shit up with childish glee. Soda cans and beer bottles crumple and shatter, and the man and the boy giggle uncontrollably together. Sometimes my dad even gets in on the act, tossing Black Cats and laughing as the sharp pops drive the birds from the tall trees. Watching the three of them is ridiculous and a little nervewracking and totally the reason I adore my family.

I get to watch my husband, my father, and my nephew do something that makes them completely equal and completely happy, together--three people with not much in common other than blood and marriage. And I can't wait to go home this weekend and be aggravated by all that fucking noise.