My favorite holiday is the 4th of July … at the beach. There is something special about the open space and fireworks over the ocean. My brother lives on Pine Point and what a holiday to spend in this neighborhood.
First things first — I am in line early at Ocean Park Grocery for the cinnamon rolls, the “best in the country,” July 4th morning. Summer is not for sleeping. It slips through our tanned fingers like beach sand. Flags await our salute. I am always patriotic but especially so on Independence Day. Cinnamon rolls from Ocean Park Grocery or potato flour donuts from Holy Donuts are a high caloric start to our holiday.
At first it is quiet on my morning bike ride weaving in and out of Avenues 1-4.
There is one particular Pine Point cottage of exuberant patriotism. Their fence is hung with banners, flags and as much red, white and blue it can display. Generations have joined in this tradition for as long as they can remember.
One or two family members standing on the corner greet and wave, blowing their horn at each car that enters the Co-Op.
That’s a lotta cars, a lotta horn blowing. Every fisherman responds in celebration. Old couples head to what used to be the Rising Tide, now the Stern for lobster and steamers and haddock. They wave and laugh and beep. Once, my elderly father and mother got in his car just to drive by and participate.
As the day longs, more family members join, their flags waving rigorously, the pitch higher. This cottage does this until dark when the sky lights up.
I ride my bike along Pine Point 4 Fire Station’s parade to the harbor pier before I walk low tide to Prout’s Neck. Walking in water, feeling as if I am walking on it, along the dunes of Scarborough Beach and Nonesuch River jetty, is the natural beauty and attraction of Pine Point.
With several conversations overlapping on beach quilts, my son delivers a cold turkey, lettuce and tomato sandwich from the Beach House Market and Deli for lunch. Food tastes so good on this holiday.
Once the sun becomes our enemy, our foreheads red and hot, after a rinse in the outside shower, my brother assembles a dozen cheeseburgers on his grill, cooking them low and slow to perfection, served with hot dogs, potato salad — so cold with crunchy bits of celery and onion — and watermelon, refreshingly dripping down our chins. A seven-layer dip is devoured while we wait. We later pull out rum pound cake garnished with fresh strawberries.
I love being on my bicycle in the dark under the bombettes, bottle rockets, crackles and confetti and missiles and candles and willows falling from the sky. From Bayley’s pier to OOB to Saco to Portland; all a shooting star display. Families and neighbors move from Jones Creek to King Street to the public beach lot following them.
I think of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson taking their final breaths on July 4th. I think of my aunt ‘Booma.’ If anyone were to have a birthday on this holiday it would be her, always in her bathing suit talking about this one being a “cocker” and my young cousins giggling at her terminology.
I think of my uncle Fred singing “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” as loud as he could, and mastering it quite well.
The day ends with a hot shower and cool down in front of oscillating fans. Pops and rumbles go most of the night but I can still hear the Downeaster make its last trip to Portland — love the sound of the train, the smell of clam flats on the Scarborough marsh, and laughter of my son and nieces and nephews downstairs strumming their guitars.
The Fourth of July is just plain fun. I hope it doesn’t change in its simplicity of hot dogs and burgers and watermelon and bike riding under the “stars” with family, and the sound of the ocean as its final breath in a glorious day of independence.
Especially, at Pine Point.
Nancy North Lapierre, of Bedford, New Hampshire, loves visiting her brother in Pine Point on the Fourth of July.
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