Sassafras Knoll

I enjoyed a picnic with a friend for the 4th, though I was a little sad to have not been home. Ruth, my father’s mother, had a rural Maryland farm called Sassafras Knoll, and every 4th, family and friends would gather there to grill bratwurst and drink sun tea and Pabst Blue Ribbon and eat deviled eggs, or to walk back through the pastures and wander around the pond, or to shoot bottle rockets and Roman candles over the barn and the carriage house, and maybe even roll out the ’53 John Deere that I used to mow the pastures with when I was a teenager. Cindy, the police officer who lives next door, would let us know that she’d be elsewhere that day, so’s not to see us with our illegal-in-Maryland fireworks. My cousin Zach and his wife Toby bought the farm from Ruth, who passed away in February, just before her ninety-first birthday. Cindy gave us a police escort for the funeral procession. But Ruth had been there at every 4th of July celebration I can remember, sometimes shucking peas with me and the dates I would bring, baking her gooseberry cobbler, and last year happily downing two or three of the Jell-O shots Toby had made. So I’m figuring this year’s celebration was bittersweet for everybody there, especially my dad and his sister, and I’m wishing I’d been able to be present.

Tonight, as a post-4th celebration, I’m going to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I might have to try and find me a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, too.

Here’s to you, Ruthie.