Turquoise Chairs, Fireworks, and Family

I’m spending this holiday weekend at Lake LBJ with my extended family. My parents bought a house here in 1968, and it's been where I've spent the majority of my 4ths. Lots of good memories here, and more being made this weekend. This year, however, we're facing a dilemma:

what to do about two decrepit 50-year old outdoor lounge chairs. The logical thing would be to deep-six them. Repairing them will require finding someone who can weld new frame pieces, which is unlikely. But while going through a box of old photographs, I couldn't help but notice how often these chairs popped up in pictures. My dad, who passed away in 1995, sitting in one, smiling as he watched his grandchildren play nearby. My then one-year old daughter, dead asleep on the turquoise webbing, still wrapped tight in a yellow foam life-jacket. Lots of good stories told in these chairs. Lots of great laughs. And yesterday, a spirited (although seated) basketball game. These chairs are a part of us.

Despite concern for the chairs, we've still managed to have big fun this holiday. And we found time to re-stage the more-or-less decennial Kronzer Cousin photo. The original was taken twenty years ago at the insistence of my mother, the proud grandmother of five. Mother was a woman with an affinity for matching outfits (if you know my brother, ask him about "Tammy and the Doctor") so the cousins were semi-outfit coordinated in the original. Wile E. Coyote clearly loves the USA! My brother’s sons are the three in baseball caps. My kids are hatless--the girl scrunched down in the corner and the boy sitting in her lap. They range in age from 2 to 14. We restaged the photo ten or so years ago; now again this year (Clearly not a family with a need to over-document.) Each time we've taken care to recreated the original pose.

There are more cousins in the picture this year--two of the originals are fathers now. The little cousins fit in just fine and seemed to have a good time. What you see here is a candid shot captured before the final pose was set. My brother's sons are still wearing baseball caps; my daughter (still the only girl) and son are again hat-free, as are the boys of the next generation. A close enough replica of the previous ones (except for the dog) and my favorite.

One final photo is a different cousin picture, and a memory of one of my best 4th of July celebrations. Summer of 1980, I had an internship in Atlanta. John, along with many of our grad school friends, was in D.C. My cousin Terry and I traveled north to join them for the holiday.

When we were growing up, Terry had been at many of those 4th gatherings at Lake LBJ so it seemed only natural to be together in D.C., too. I'm at the bottom of the picture, looking mighty elegant in John's handsome Ontario Motor Speedway gimme cap. Terry is stretched out beside me, wearing jeans on what I remember to be a hellishly hot day. We're camped out at the base of the Washington Monument, listening to the Beach Boys. Once the sun set, we moved to the end of the Mall where the Boston Pops, led by their brand-new conductor John Williams, played a program full of Sousa marches, and of course, the "1812 Overture." While the cannons boomed, fireworks lit the sky over the Capitol. Pure magic! This was the last 4th of July we spent together--Terry died a few years later, an early casualty of the AIDS epidemic. He's on my mind often, though. And always when I see fireworks.

Our Lake LBJ tradition was to pile in the boat to check out the fireworks show in nearby Kingsland, but after an ill-fated trip that involved not enough beer, too much scotch, an un-tethered anchor, and a full-throttle trip home with crashing waves reminiscent of that final scene of “The Perfect Storm,” we now stick to dry land and enjoy whatever fireworks we can see from the dock. Fortunately, there’s always plenty to watch. Terry won't be far from my thoughts tonight. And neither will all the the people, present and past, who've enjoyed the fellowship of those turquoise chairs.