Fourth of July

Our first “Fourth of July” in America. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that we spent it at the Neighborhood Pool. I’ve never seen it so crowded. If you wanted to move from one spot in the pool to another, it was more a question of swimming through people than water, and jumping in was a highly dangerous activity.

There were games organized in the afternoon, and a chicken dinner in the evening. The whole thing kicked off with a short speech, reflecting on how fortunate we were to have the kind of freedoms and privileges that so many people in the world don’t enjoy. Then everyone was invited to turn towards the flag, and the national anthem was played over the loudspeaker. For me, there was, inevitably, the slightly awkward feeling of the outsider: “what do I do here?” I was very near the flagpole, right in everyone else’s line of sight, and there weren’t many people in mine from whom I could take the lead. Luckily, no-one was singing, just letting the singer on the loudspeaker do her bit. This was a “phew” moment as, to my shame, I must admit I don’t know the words. Mental note to self: must learn words of American national anthem or face embarrassment on public occasion in the future. I was also flummoxed for a brief moment (momentarily, I would say, if I was American) on the position of the hand over the chest. This is tricky for a member of the female sex, unused to making the gesture, and wearing a swimsuit. I know the hand is meant to be over the heart, but not to put too fine a point on it, I didn’t want to clap my hand over my boob. With a bit of surreptitious glancing around, I reckoned the preferred position was over the top heading towards the collar bone, not underneath and at the bottom of the ribcage. And you have to do it quite loosely, otherwise you squish the other boob in the crook of your elbow…. Oh, for heaven’s sake, enough of this. Suffice to say, the gesture was clearly invented by a man.

We don’t do that kind of thing in Britain any more, or say those kind of things, do we? I can’t remember the last time I sang the national anthem, but when I was a child, public events did often start with it. We don’t really do patriotism nowadays. It wouldn’t be … um … well, I suppose it just wouldn’t be British. So there was much food for thought. I was looking up at the Stars and Stripes and cogitating quietly (as well as doing a bit of surreptitious elbow-rearranging), when the anthem finished and 3-yo said in a loud voice “that was a bit scary, wasn’t it?” I thought it was probably the strangeness of seeing a crowd of adults standing still and quiet and intent that prompted the remark, but who knows? Maybe she was making some profound political point. I have learned not to under-estimate my children’s insights.

On with the games. There were relay races in inner tubes, diving for money, a plastic duck grab, and the Big Splash competition. I had entered Husband for the Big Splash competition, urged by the pool manager who seemed a bit worried that there weren’t enough entrants. I knew he wouldn’t mind. I also told him that there was a prize: the winner would get a percentage of their mortgage paid for a year out of Neighborhood Association funds. For the glorious 20 or 30 seconds when I managed to keep a straight face, he believed me. Entering him in the Big Splash competition was worth it for that. He didn’t win the competition, or, to his relief, get through the first round. There may not have been enough entrants at the beginning of the afternoon, but by the time the competition took place, there were plenty. Most of them were very tall, very well built, and veteran Big Splashers. My guess is that several have private tuition after dark. Husband’s cannonball jump off the diving board produced a gratifying plop and a bit of a spray. The Big Splashers who followed him created tidal waves, and the one wearing the Stars and Stripes shorts half-emptied the pool. As I say, he wasn’t at all disappointed not to make it through to the second round. For 10-yo, however, it was all a bit anxious. “Do you think Daddy will drown in the deep end without his glasses on?” he asked nervously before the big jump. “Do you think Daddy minded not being very good? I still feel sorry for him.” he said, a good 24 hours after the event. And this was my answer: Do you remember when you didn’t do very well in the sack race at school, Daddy said to you “Don’t worry. If you could choose what to be good at in life, would jumping around in an old sack be it? Some people are good at that; you’re good at plenty of other things.” Well, it’s the same for him. If he could choose what to be good at, it wouldn’t be making a big splash in a swimming pool, would it? I don’t think you need mind for him any more. Life is so complicated isn’t it? You enter your husband for the Big Splash competition one minute, and the next you’re deep in the realm of the male ego. And that's deeper than the deep end, believe me.

We had our moment of glory, as a family, in the diving for money competition, in which 3-yo quietly excelled. She usually keeps her light hidden under a bushel, or at least a wild mop of blond hair, but no-one was going to match her on this. Her gentle but determined enthusiasm was spurred on by her crowd, her two big brothers: “it’s MONEY, 3-yo, and you get to KEEP IT!”. The other little ones had adoring parents who affirmed and loved them: “good jaaahb, Sweetie, you picked up that coin all by yourself!”, but it didn’t give them quite the competitive edge that 3-yo enjoyed. She also did have the advantage of age, being in the 0-3 category. You can see how a 3 year old in the shallow water of the baby pool does have a huge physical advantage over a just-staggering 1 year old. The advantage played out in her cunning strategy of scooting around on her bottom. Next year, they might introduce a “fair play” rule to disallow this, and she would have to join the ranks of the staggerers, for whom picking up a coin involves having to put your face under the water, and a fair bit of groveling and spluttering. Of course by then she will be out of the 0-3 category anyway, and have to compete in the big pool, where bottom-shuffling is not a possibility. But she had her triumph, and made a tidy $2.85, which she spent the next day on a pink phone with the Ode to Joy as its ring tone, and which comes in its own fluffy and bejeweled carry case. Can’t be bad. Husband and I worked out that she was earning at the rate of about $60 an hour (a dollar a minute). It is something of a pity that her new-found skill and natural ability can’t be put to lucrative use. If only we could think of a job that involved picking up coins from the bottom of shallow pools, and if only it were legal to send a 3 year old to work, we could do quite well out of her.

Most people drifted away from the pool after the games, so it was pleasantly quieter for the chicken dinner, which was billed as a “Popeye’s Chicken Dinner”. This had me rather confused, as I misread it as “Popeseye” and would have asked someone some idiot question about “I thought Pope’s eye was a cut of steak, not chicken”, but I have got very practiced at not asking idiot questions, and by the end of the evening, I’d worked it out for myself. The idiot questions thing is one of the less attractive aspects of expat life. You inevitably ask idiot questions. You can’t help it. Of course they’re not idiot questions, they’re simply questions asked from a position of blameless ignorance, and people are very patient and nice. However, you do get a bit fed up asking them after a while, so I try and figure out what I can for myself now.

That was our Fourth of July. The evening ended early, as the clouds drew over and it looked like a thunderstorm was coming, and there’s something about lightning and pools which isn’t a good combination. But we were ready for home. It had been a long afternoon. All credit to me and Husband though. We had initiated a private joke, so that whenever anyone greeted us “Happy Fourth!”, we were beset by a juvenile desire to say “Firth of Forth!” in jolly response, and we had managed to resist all day.