Almost as long as I can remember, our friends in the Piedy Clan have hosted a 4th of July party. When I was a little kid I think there was a cookout followed by a big bonfire on the beach. Us little kids had sparklers and the big Piedy boyz shot off roman candles.

This event morphed into various formats over the years and there were a number of years when our clan didn’t attend. This was not due to any kind of feud or whatever. I think what happened is that as my generation started begatting, there became too many people for anyone to easily host it and we focused on our own families. We were still friends and remain so now.

It was the year my brother died that the Piedy Clan reached out and deliberately invited our clan again. It would take a whole ‘nother post to write about that but it has again become a tradition for both clans and has expanded to include other neighbors. It now takes the form of a potluck and there is no bonfire or any kind of fireworks. With any luck we’ll be able to watch the fireworks across the water at the res if it ever gets dark here in the land of the midnight 10 o’clock sun.

Then there was last year. I don’t know if the Piedy clan had any kind of get-together but I did not hear of one and if they had invited us, I would have politely declined. We were all holed up isolated in our own lovely spaces.

This year we gathered again. I’m pretty sure we don’t all have the same polly-ticks but nobody in these two clans is stoopid and we are all vaxxed. I won’t gush about how good it felt to talk to all of these friends I’ve known my whole life in person again. The two grandfathers of my generation bought the land together. Next year it’ll be 100 years since that event and our families are still here. We all wonder if our grandfathers had any kind of vision of what they were starting.

The photoooo is a shot of Guano Round Island as we approached it in the Motor Bote this morning. Taking a bote ride is a typical anniversary event for us but we couldn’t do it yesterday because there were decent sized waves. This morning? Glass. This year the engine only cut out once and it was easily restarted. We didn’t run out of gas and I didn’t have to row us back. And even though we were in Tippy Bote, I somehow managed to get in and out of the bote without flashing anyone 🐽

P.S. The res definitely has good fireworks tonight but some of us had to abandon the beach due to the moe-skee-toes🐽. I can still see them out my picture window.

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