INDEPENDENCE DAY is one of the best days to have a birthday. I know this because my mother was born on the Fourth of July. Since it was her birthday, it meant we had double reason to celebrate, and all the relatives came to our house for picnicking, fireworks, ice cream, and flag cake. It was a little dicey sometimes, getting that cake out of the pan without ruining the stars, but you could always count on red, white, and blue icing to patch up the oopsies.

Of course, Mom didn't mind what the cake looked like--she was happy we had made it. If everyone was coming, we'd need another cake in the lasagna pan, and for that one we might use vanilla icing decked out with strawberries and blueberries. The menu may have varied from year to year, but you could always count on potato salad and Jell-O. We'd crank out magic-marker cards on construction paper with "Happy Birthday, Mom" dotted with more flags, fireworks, and flowers. Artistically speaking, there was heavy concentration of red, white, and blue. And, yes, bless her heart, she still has all of those cards.

Patriotic music, playing in the background, was another staple of the day. If "God Bless America" or "America, the Beautiful" wasn't playing on a record or tape, then Mom and my aunts were singing them and encouraging everyone else to sing along. A hush would fall over the gathering as Grandpa read the Declaration of Independence, or recited the Gettysburg Address or Chauncey M. Depew's tribute to Lincoln by heart. We would all marvel at what he had memorized in the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse, and how, in that year, he had fallen in love with Grandma.

It was a day to celebrate and remember our great gift of freedom. The dads took care of the pyrotechnic display with the boys hovering in the wings, waiting for their turn to be old enough to light the fireworks. The Fourth was always a day to celebrate and remember.