FOURTH OF
JULY,1939.
By G.W.S.Ware.
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My first 4th. of July came to me 85 years, 3 months and one day ago. I know nothing
about it as my mind was too young to register events. No one has ever visited past events,
but if it were possible, I would step back and see myself and folks as they were that day.
I would like to be invited in as a stranger, and loiter around several hours and see the
beginning of thing with me. As an infant, I was nothing new, for eight others had preceded
me, and perhaps, I was regarded as a common occurance. Would it not have been startling,
for in whose care I was, to become inquisitive, and ask me who I was, and I would answer:
"I am this infant, 85 years, 3 months and one day, from now."
I was a boy during the Civil War, and the South paid no attention to the Fourth of
July. It was too busy trying to establish its own independence, and its failure is worth
celebrating, but it is against human nature to do it.
The fourth of July, 1902, I remember, for my beloved Son, Callia Ware, was on his death
bed, nine years of age, and we loved eachother in a special way, ingrained and automatic.
When I came in from my churches, as pastor, day or night, in my road cart, he would run
out shouting, Papa has come, Papa has come, and unhitch my horse. He was the first of my
family to go down into the valley of death. If he had lived 46 years would be his age.
These 37 years I have gone along without his helpful, cheerful presence; but I said over
his open grave: "If I could, I would not turn my hand to bring him back to this
world." Years after this in Worthington, Florida, one fourth of July, I saw an old
man, who lived alone, across the Street from me, lying in the hot Sun, in front of his
gate, too feeble to get up, and calling for help. I ran over and gave him the aid he
needed, A large crowd of people down at the Spring, but I came in, in time to save him. I
think this was the kindest deed I ever did on a fourth of July.
