The place for me on the 4th of July...

...is under a big old tree in a city park at noon, eating a hot dog, listening to a small-town community band play "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Then, at 10 p.m., the right place is the back of a minivan in a weedy field, surrounded by pickup trucks, all with our radios tuned to patriotic music on the local radio, watching fireworks. The music doesn't quite start and end in sync with the show, so the grand finale is to the tune of a tire-store commercial.

We had to travel 700-plus miles to my mom's house for this home-town Independence Day, but it's worth it every year.