For many of us these days, the 4^th of July is no big deal. But growing up and, later, raising my kids in L.A., it was a primo holiday.

Back in the day, my parents, sister and I lived in a duplex on Orange Street, downstairs from my grandparents. Fireworks were banned in L.A., but shortly before the fourth, my father would drive us to nearby Culver City, where it was legal to purchase a giant box of them.

At the barbecue our parents hosted, my father grilled shish kabob—chunks of lamb, marinated in soy sauce, with tomatoes, onions and green peppers on skewers— and for the kids he made burgers. Deserts included my grandmother’s banana cake with lemon frosting and my mother’s chocolate ice-box cake.

When darkness fell, which seemed to take forever, we lit sparklers that you held in your hand, and set fire to black dots on the ground that grew into snakes. But in later years, the snakes were boring. We craved the works that soared into the air, whistling, popping and banging, until they came crashing down.

Decades later, when I lived with my husband and two young children on 25^th Street in Santa Monica, our block was special. Days before the 4^th, our neighbor, Mike Salter, would go from door to door, gathering signatures on a petition to close our block to traffic on July 4^th.

In the morning, all the neighborhood kids decorated their bikes with crepe-paper streamers and bells, lined up on one end of the street and, at a signal, raced to the other end of the street and back as Bruce Springsteen sang from a loudspeaker, “Born in the U.S.A..”

There were games—3-legged races and egg toss, which required a special skill: you had to move with the egg’s trajectory as you caught it or the egg would splatter in your hands.

Our son, Andrew, was the reigning champ of apple bobbing. A large tub was set on the grass and filled with cold water and a dozen apples. He would kneel and duck his head under the water, maneuver an apple to the side of the tub, then sink his teeth in and lift it in the air while the other kids were still chasing apples around the tub. With the apple in his mouth, he would pump his arm in victory.

Later, kids would gather in our backyard to jump on our large, round trampoline, and try to catch a beach ball thrown to them by a parent. But one year, a boy fell off and broke his arm. No more trampoline jump after that.

Tables and chairs were set up in the street for the community potluck dinner, and afterward, of course: bang bang, pop pop.

Thinking back, the words of Wordsworth come to mind:

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass,

Of glory in the flower,

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind…

And may that strength, that glory, soon be felt, when we can celebrate—truly—the founding of our democracy.

Your thoughts, memories? Please comment below.