JULY 4
This holiday arrives when the bounty of summer vegetables is exploding in backyard gardens and at farmers’ markets. The best of the season’s tomatoes are ready, as are fat ears of sweet corn and cool melons. The annual flood of zucchini hasn’t begun, which means no one is trying to get rid of it; they’re just enjoying it.
It’s hot around here. But with this abundance of goodness to enjoy, southerners can deal with a little toasty heat. Parks and lakes are packed on Independence Day as people use the holiday as a time for family reunions and neighborhood block parties.
Right after the Civil War, Independence Day was not embraced by some southerners who felt it was a northern holiday. Also, July 4, 1863, was when the forty-day siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, ended with surrender to the Union army. Vicksburg didn’t officially celebrate the holiday for about eighty years.
Today, southerners celebrate the Fourth much as those in other parts of the country do, with fireworks, parades, and good food, perhaps savoring the day a bit more due to the sizable number of servicemen and -women based in the region.