I don’t want to Grandpa Terrance’s this year.
This isn’t up for discussion.
Throwing up. That’s what I feel like when I think about it.
Your grandfather fought in three wars.
But, like, in my soul. Like my soul is trying to purge itself.
You might show a bit of gratitude. You could be speaking German. Or Korean. Or Vietnamese or Russian.
I don’t think we were ever in danger of being invaded by Korea or Vietnam.
Chinese, also. Which you may still end up having to speak. But it won’t be because your Grandpa Terrance didn’t kill as many of them as he could in Korea and Vietnam.
I don’t want to wear the costume, is mostly what I think it is. I nearly died from the heat last year.
-
- More torturously hot than it looks. Also more olfactorily devastating.
Your grandmother, god bless her poor dead soul, made that costume. I wore that costume for twenty-two years. You should be honored to wear that costume. And you don’t even have to pull the cannon. I had to pull the cannon.
Literally uphill. I know.
Your grandfather takes the Stations of Freedom very seriously.
No shit he does.
That’s what’s wrong with your generation. The lack of respect for tradition. I blame Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
You know I’ve only maybe heard their songs a couple of times.
Young, although Canadian, is more of a patriot than those other three hippies combined.
Didn’t he write…
Dissent is the lodestone of Liberty. “Four Dead in Ohio” expresses the disenchantment with the dream of freedom in the aftermath of federal troops firing on civilians. That song is about the spilling of the blood of freedom’s martyrs. Even if someone else–the drummer, I think–wrote it.
I don’t know if I’m physically able to go. I might lose all motor function. If I do go, I may lose muscle control.
As long as you’re living in my fallout shelter, you’re going to your goddamned grandfather’s Fourth of July celebration.
Like all muscle control.
You wouldn’t be the first person to shit in the costume. And probably not the last, either.
I always thought that suit smelled weird.
That’s the smell of freedom. Of liberty.
