Born on the 4th of July

Welcome to New Harmony, Indiana, a quiet little town that is untouched by the commercialism that plagues your larger cities. It's a veritable utopia ...

I didn't get to explore that much of New Harmony because of the Achilles, but Vic was kind enough to let me pass down Main Street about 7 times while he was lost. I ended up at John and Aurora's house for a wonderful picnic on the 4th. There was a ton of food including the green beans, mac n cheese, butterscotch pies and chocolate cake and sauce that my Mom and Aunt brought to the table. John has a gift for making margaritas. The Cuervo Gold flowed like water to the point of a glass pitcher breaking, but that was quickly replaced by another and the drinks kept a coming. John also is talented with his Green Egg. The corn, beef brisket, sausages and shrimp that came from that wonderful little smoker were amazing. I like to think that I have some skill (some of which I'm sure I lost over the last few years of semi-retirement) when it comes to smoking meats, but what John could do with charcoal and wood that should be illegal and probably is. And not to be outdone, his wife Aurora, made some pretty mean eats herself. She came out with some baked beans and a wonderful potato salad that is better than anything I have purchased in a store. There was a bowl of it near the head of the food line and I got a small scoop to try it. When I saw that it was almost gone, I was relieved because I didn't have to make a decision on whether to get some more. Than as I was getting up to get some more vegetables and chips, she brings out a whole new bowl of potato salad. I may have called her evil, but she knew how much I was enjoying her cooking. She even sent some leftover potato salad home for me. Even though everyone seemed to like the idea of eating healthy, there were way too many deserts for my liking. There was butterscotch pie (one of my favorites), chocolate cake and sauce (another favorite, but I would have had to fight Brian in order to get some), cupcakes and Aurora's wonderful blend of angel food cake, fresh fruit and whipped cream that was layered into a yummy bowl of goodness. I will admit that I could have eaten less, but I did make pains to drink 32 oz of water on the way to New Harmony and drink plenty of grandpa's medicine while I was at the picnic. I took a water bottle filled with Chivas Regal 12 year and a dash of diet Dr. Pepper. It was a wonderful supplement to the margaritas and I only regret not bringing enough to share. It was my first time drinking Chivas and I was impressed with the smoothness of the Scottish liquor. I will gladly be breaking into the bottle that I have back at the house. I spent much of the evening talking with Jon and Aurora's son, Aaron. He has a lot of interesting ideas about the way the world should be and some changes that could very well shake up the status quo here in America. I, unfortunately, am old and jaded, so I kind of had to throw a wet blanket on some of his ideas. We had a lively discussion on everything from politics to the Transformers movie, none of which I plan to relive here. It was great fun to try to have a logical debate over theoretical topics, but it was also very draining. There was really no way to win or lose the arguement, so we went round and round on most topics several times. We were both open-minded enough to actually listen to what the other had to say, so it was fun instead of something that could have turned ugly. Aaron's comment that the new Transformers movie was terrible did lead Brian to jump in between us. Don't talk about my babies. I'm a grown ass man, so come at me; but whatever you do don't talk about my babies. As the night fell, we were greeted by a fireworks display. My bum wheel prevented me from moving as quickly as the others, but Aaron hung back with me to continue our chat all the way to the roofless church and all the way back. I have a few videos from Friday that I will be adding over the next few days. I used to buy a bundle of fireworks back in the day, but it got to be an ordeal to drive to TN to pick them up and then find a good spot to set them off that would not potentially destroy my house. Now that money has been shifted to a slush fund for buying high-end electronics, except for an ancient cell phone that I have. This entire trip to IN has been accented by poor cellular coverage. I really blame Sprint more than my phone. There were other Sprint users that had issues as well. So if anyone tried to contact me on the 4th, my phone was searching for service. And its not like I could have used a cousin's phone to try to contact people if I didn't know whether or not they had contacted me. Call me crazy (and most people do), but I thought it would be better to hang out in the moment and enjoy the break from "civilization" that New Harmony provides. I will get back to my peeps that tried to get at me, though. Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend. I'm headed up to Wall-E World to get a knee brace. The cousins Vic and Michael are ganging up on me in the gym in a few hours. I'll need every bit of help I can get in order to survive.