We don’t mess with Christmas, New Year’s Day or the Fourth of July. When they hit, we celebrate.
It’s nice that Memorial Day and Labor Day are always on a Monday for lovely three-day weekends. What are folks doing this year with a Wednesday Fourth of July? I asked some readers who were happy to share.
Her family will skip a usual July 4 trip to their ocean property, said Jennifer Greene, 47, from Everett.
“I guess this year, I can just be happy that my family all lives locally, and we can still get together at home for a barbecue,” Greene said. “We do plan to go camping the following weekend. Of course, in Western Washington, everything depends on the weather.”
The mid-week holiday is fine, said Janessa L. Bishop, 35, of Lake Stevens, but the day after July 4 should be the holiday, giving us some time to sleep in after watching the fireworks.
Chris Ferguson, 40, from Mill Creek, will visit family in Lilliwaup.
“It is very inconvenient to celebrate July Fourth in the middle of the week, especially to stay up a little late during the week to watch fireworks,” Ferguson said. “That alarm clock goes off pretty early on Thursday.”
Someone should make an executive decision to move the celebration of Independence Day to a Friday or Monday when it falls in the middle of the week, said Susan Bjorling, 36, who lives at Lake Ki.
“The Fourth being on a Wednesday is kind of a bummer for us,” Bjorling said. “My family traditionally has a big barbecue at the house where we grew up.”
This year, her brother will probably be working out of town the day before and won’t have time to get home for the Wednesday party and back to work Thursday.
“The fireworks start so late, that all the adults will be burned out the next day for work. One brother-in-law is a longshoreman in Seattle and the other is a Seattle police officer. They should probably be alert for those jobs.”
Plan B was to go to Ephrata where her parents live, but she said you certainly can’t (well, I suppose you could, but you’d be crazy) drive over the pass for one day.
“We’ll probably end up going to our friend’s house in Monroe, or have a few people over and watch the fireworks over Lake Ki,” Bjorling said. “It’s just not the same as being able to go camping or make a weekend of it.”
Nothing is stopping the Denise Boyett family from their annual trip. Boyett, 44, from Langley, is spending a week with their horses on the ocean in Oregon.
“For us, it doesn’t matter if it is in the middle of the week or close to the weekend,” she said. “Our vacation starts the second and goes until the eighth.”
There is seldom work for a musician such as Jack McDougall, 74, who lives in Everett, on July 4.
“We’ll never be able to talk the folks in Washington D.C. into messing around with the sacred Fourth of July,” McDougall said. “It would be nice if, when it came on a Tuesday or Thursday, we could make it a long weekend.”
Diane Lundberg, 53, who lives in Arlington, said yahoo for the red, white and blue.
“It’s always been one of my favorite holidays since I was a little girl,” Lundberg said. “It meant potato salad, chips and pop (one of the few days a year we got those) at a church picnic and then hurry home for the parade down main street.”
Her family usually celebrates with a picnic and perhaps the parade in Arlington.
“Since my 98- and 89-year-old parents live a skip and jump from the route, we’ll have a good parking place and a short walk. We’ve always added vacation days to the Fourth and this year is no different. My husband’s birthday is the fifth, so the celebrating just keeps going.”
Working in the retail world, Diedra Collins, 37, never knows if she will get the day off.
“The Fourth is just a time for most to party like crazy,” Collins said. “I’m not that type, so I just watch the fireworks from my house overlooking Everett. Sometimes we have a small barbecue, nothing special, very casual.”
There’s a family and neighborhood party planned, said Cathy Nairn, 63, from Lake Ki.
“One daughter is taking the next day off to avoid starting at 6 a.m. Thursday,” Nairn said. “We will do fireworks and have a giant potluck.”
She is also planning a door prize thing, she said.
“Little rubber ducks with red and blue hats, everyone will write their name on the bottom, and they will float in a Fourth of July big bucket until we draw them out.”
Winners get $1 prizes for the most part. Everyone likes something for free, even if it’s just a dollar, Nairn said.
She’s not grumbling about the Wednesday holiday, said Dianne Berst, 61, of Marysville, who works four ten-hour days each week.
“I have Tuesdays off, then the Fourth will be a holiday,” Berst said. “The night of the Fourth is typically a sleepless night with fireworks going off until the wee hours. However this year, I will not have to get up at o’dark-thirty to commute to Seattle as I am working from home while I recover from surgery.”
She will still have to be up and on the job by 7 a.m. for her job as a judicial assistant, Berst said.
“I have a great deal of empathy for my daughter and her car pool buddy who must be on the freeway at an early hour July 5 after a sleepless night. It’s my older-than-dirt opinion that there is no reason to disturb the neighborhood past midnight on July Fourth, and it would be very nice if common courtesy took over instead of police action.”
And don’t even get her started on how scared pets get during the fracas, Berst added.
Being self-employed, it doesn’t bother Sharon Szekely, 51, that the Fourth is mid-week. She will spend the day with family on Camano Island.
“There are always fireworks to watch somewhere,” Szekely said. “In the development where we live, people line up on the bulkheads at the beach and shoot off fireworks like crazy. We can see the fireworks on other beaches on the island and the Everett waterfront.”
Here is a perfect Yankee Doodle Dandy: Marree Perrault will watch the excellent fireworks show near her home in Darrington, she said.
“I am not disappointed that the Fourth is not a three-day weekend,” Perrault, 25, said. “I am glad the Fourth is still celebrated on the Fourth.”
With no day off, Todd Elvig, 42, said his day in Snohomish will be pretty boring.
“We don’t plan on traveling anywhere the weekend before or after,” Elvig said. “The wife’s family is local so they will probably be over to get a free meal. As far as the kids go, they are out of school so every day is the weekend for them. We most likely will go to the park and light off a few fireworks after dusk, then watch others from the hillside.”
Neena Blackwell, 60, who lives in Everett, said her family will celebrate at her sister’s home on Priest Point where there is a view of the Everett waterfront.
In addition, the people in her area put on quite a show of their own, she added.
His days of jumping into the river on the Fourth of July are past, so Mark Campbell of Monroe, 48, has a less dangerous plan for the day.
“With this special day falling on a Wednesday this year, travel is not practical as the following day is back to work for me,” Campbell said. “Some barbecue and watermelon will likely get eaten. While I’m a big fan of firework shows, I don’t care for the neighborhood fireworks that start early morning and continue until the next day or two.”
The family lives near the Evergreen State Fairgrounds so will watch the Monroe show from their front yard, joined by neighbors who bring blankets, he said.
He’ll have a great view of the fireworks in Seattle, said Daron Johnson, 35, who lives in Edmonds.
Johnson plans to take off Thursday and Friday.
“I plan on going to some friends house in Ravensdale where I am also a volunteer firefighter,” Johnson said. “At their place we can see the fireworks from the Space Needle.”
Bjorling said we should be happy to celebrate America and all its freedoms, no matter where we end up.
“Every holiday or celebration I get with my family is special since the war started, simply because we are all together,” Bjorling said. “Any day, here, and safe, is better than being in Iraq fighting for our lives. We are so grateful to all of those men and women.”
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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