Remembering July 4th

Ah, but then, there was the Fourth of July. Forget the rest of the month. The Fourth was all important, the summer version of New Year’s Eve with food, friends, and best of all, fireworks. It’s our country’s birthday, and we party hearty.

I can hear Kool & The Gang singing,

“Yahoo!
It’s your celebration.
Celebrate good times, come on!

Let’s celebrate.
Celebrate good times, come on!
Let’s celebrate.
There’s a party goin’ on right here,
A celebration to last throughout the years

So bring your good times, and your laughter too,
We gonna celebrate your party with you,
Come on, now
Celebration
Let’s all celebrate and have a good time

Celebration
We gonna celebrate and have a good time
It’s time to come together
It’s up to you, what’s your pleasure?
Everyone around the world, come on!”

In Bluffton, way back in the 1940s, on the fourth of July, our Myrtle Island cottage was filled to the brim with visitors, luggage on top of beds, piled on chairs, spewing shorts and bathing suits and makeup bags with the latest Revlon lipsticks, hairbrushes, Mum deodorant, Ipana and Pepsodent toothpaste, Calamine and Noxzema lotion. Alka Seltzer, just in case.

Watermelons sat out in the yard cooling in a washtub of melting ice.

Coca-Cola came in small bottles, and we had a couple of cases from the East Broad Street plant, some large 15-cent bottles of ginger ale, and “seventy-leven” bottles of beer.

Most importantly, there was food, all kinds of food, fried chicken and sliced ham, red rice, butter beans, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob, Hannah Childer’s pound cake, which was the absolute best, and macaroons from Gottlieb’s Bakery on Bull Street in Savannah. And there was pie, lemon meringue, and apple, and pecan.

Our ice box was ready with a 50-pound block of ice from Bessie’s Ice House in Bluffton.
The ice cream churn waited on the doorsteps outside the kitchen for someone to turn the crank.

There was no electricity. We did have a well, and you hauled water into the house in buckets for the bathroom necessaries. We had kerosene lamps for light at night and a two-burner kerosene cook stove in the kitchen. The reek of mold and mildew from when the cottage was locked up during the winter months was almost gone by July.

Almost.

A few bed pillows still smelled a bit musty.

By the time this all-American holiday rolled around, the River Maye had warmed up. No shivering now when the water hit our belly buttons, thank you very much. We could hardly wait until the tide was right for swimming. Never even thought about a hurricane coming our way.

I take that back. There are always those gloom and doom people who tried to justify their predictions of disaster when the most pathetic of thunderstorms rolled through.

For us, it was the best of times.

The Fourth of July. Happy Birthday, America!

Annelore Harrell’s journey is a tapestry woven with fascinating experiences and extraordinary accomplishments. Even at 92 in 2025, Annelore’s energy and zest for life continue to inspire. Annelore Harrell’s story is a testament to living with passion, resilience, and an unquenchable thirst for adventure.