My closest buddies and I visit the same small town every year for a July 4
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weekend fishing trip. We always rent from the same Podunk green and white motel and generally get the same adjacent far corner rooms every year. The motel is the cleanest of the three in the little town. Believe me, we tried the others and they were dirty by any fisherman's standards. The town advertises a population of 3327 as you roll in on Main Street, but all the surrounding populations flock to this town for the Independence Day weekend festivities, so when we are visiting, it seems much larger than it really is.
Don't get me wrong, we are here for fishing. For us, the holiday festivities are always a distant second to trying to get the elusive mammoth sized trout. It is the only time we all see each other since we each live more than 2 hours away from each other. Even though the distance between us is not that much, running a concrete laying crew 6 days a week, 50 weeks per year, leaves me too physically worn out to drive 2 hours anywhere on most days off.
This year, July 4
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fell on a Friday, so all of the local small-town celebrations were scheduled for 5
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. As is typical for me and my troupe, it started out no different than any other. We got up at before sunrise and hightailed it to our favorite fishing spot. My buddy Charlie and I got our limit by 10 a.m., earlier than the rest of the group, so we decided to take one of the vehicles back to town for an early lunch.
We parked the newer model blue SUV at the motel, changed our clothes, and walked down Main Street where crowds were gathering. Pop up canopies of every color lined each side of the street. Heck, there were a few here and there made of Mossy Oak hunting camouflage fabric. Every inch of curbside parking was shaded by one pop-up canopy or another. Each pop-up covered rows of chairs, all of which were filled with grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren. Nearly every one of them had some sort of shirt or shorts emblazoned with symbolism of the American flag.
Red white and blue shirts, pants, hats, scarfs, shoes, and socks, for as far as Main Street stretched, which was only about ¾ of a mile. Children with shiny reflective toy handheld windmills ran this way and that, either chasing or being chased. I stood out amongst the local men, almost all of whom were wearing plaid shirts, big belt buckles, blue jeans and either cowboy or camouflage hats. I was dressed for comfort, wearing my baggy gray weightlifter shorts, somewhat tight black Hawaiian beer t-shirt, and my grey and black water shoes. The local women with short jean cut-offs, tank tops, big movie star glasses, and flip flops stood out in contrast to the local men.
Charlie and I entered the crowded sidewalk and started walking along the sidewalk, dodging more kids and families scurrying to get a position for the parade that was just beginning to come down the road toward us. Leading the parade was a group of boyscouts walking shoulder to shoulder down the middle of the road. Next came a series of cars led by the local highschool standouts and then local politicians. We reached the parking lot for the local diner and Charlie asked "Do you want to grab something here?" The dark lit diner had been there forever and looked like it. The roof needed some repair and the side boards and trim were a maze of cracks and flakes of old paint, desperately in need of a paint job. The chainsaw carvings of woodland animals that surrounded the restaurants sign were splitting and well weathered.
I thought for a moment and decided against a sit down meal. I got a hankering to see the parade. "Nah! I am going to go get something from the burger stand. You?" I asked.
"I am going in here. I will catch up with you later at the hotel." Charlie said, walking towards the aluminum shrouded glass doors.
I headed into the crowd again. There were less people bustling about as most everyone was glued to the entertainment of the local lodge members driving around the street in steel tubing go-carts wearing a variety of colorful clown outfits. I always enjoyed the antics of the lodge members during the parades. Their driving in circles around each other, honking and throwing candy to kids always makes me smile.
I was nearing the burger shack and realized maybe it was a mistake. There wasn't a very long line for ordering, but there was a long line for pick up. The pick up line was full of hyped up kids and their moms. I approached the end of the line and stood turned sideways, waiting my turn, watching the parade go by.
As I got to be next in line I checked out the large white plastic menu just inside and above the order window. It was the same menu sign with little black plastic letters attached that every small town burger shack displayed their menu with. The menu items also resembled the same menu every small town burger joint across America had above their window. Burgers, hot dogs, fries, and ice cream. My eyes froze on the ice cream flavors. The words "hard pack ice cream" jumped off of the white faded plastic background into my brain and stuck there.
"Hello! What can I get you?" A crackly girlish voice said from the little open window.
"Ummm, I will have mint chip double scoop on a sugar cone, please!" I said to the freckled young redheaded teenager
"Double mint chip on sugar!" She yelled loudly.
"Thank you!" I said, pulling out my wallet and paying the teenager. I moved off the left and began to head to the back of the pick up line.
I was at the end of the line barely a moment before I heard a young man yell "Mint chip, double" from the pick up window.
"Wow, that was fast." I thought to myself. I figured then that everyone waiting must have ordered a hot item. I accepted my cone from the brown haired pimply teenage boy. He was sweating and looked taxed. I grabbed a couple extra thin white napkins and wrapped them around the bottom half of the ice cream cone, grabbed a few more for good luck. I moved to my right parting a group of preteen young girls, laughing and smiling ear to ear, giggling a some joke I didn't hear as I made my way through the crowd towards the burger stand's parking lot. The entrance was a good place to view the parade as none of the local business driveways were blocked with canopies. Instead, the driveways were full of families either standing or sitting in fold out chairs, all of which were enjoying themselves and trying to get a view of the festivities passing by.
I hugged the edge of the building as I made my way along the parade route. There was group of about five young teenage girls and what seemed to be their mother, standing between me and a row f waist high bushes that paralleled the street and separated the parking lot from the sidewalk. Holding my ice cream cone close to my body to avoid losing it to any inattentive passerby, I parked myself behind the group of females. It was a good spot to see the continuing parade of slick steel hot rods slowly creeping by, each one revving its engine in some cyclical pattern, as if an alarm attempting to wake the crowd out of a deep sleep.
As I stood there, I couldn't help but take notice of the young teens and their apparent guardian standing in front of me. All of them were wearing white tank tops and camisols, either tennis shorts or cut-off jeans, those ever-popular large framed sunglasses, and flip flops. It particularly caught my attention the mother was the only one that had no bra straps peeking out from beneath the white fabric tank top. Her hair was convincingly blond and arced downward around her neck, splashing across her shoulders. The skin showing between her white tank top and her shorts was smooth and looked young and supple. Her ass was squeezed into some yellow tennis shorts, tight enough allowing the fabric to stretch around the hemispherical globes that were her ass cheeks. They topped off the muscular partly tanned legs that held up the J-Lo ass. From behind, it was almost difficult to tell from behind that she was not the same age as the teenagers she presided over.
An old finely restored mid-20
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century red fire engine rolled by, volunteer fire fighters escorting to each side. I took a large bite out of the top of the ice cream. A bit dribbled down my chin forcing me to wipe up with one of the barely effective napkins. As I wiped my chin, I looked down and again took in the view of the woman's ass.
I took a long lick up the side of the quickly melting ice cream in my right hand, slurping up what would have been a drip down the side of the cone. Without any warning, the woman in front of me bent over to pick something up from the ground. Her shapely ass moved backwards and smashed into my groin. I jerked my upper body at the contact. That quick jerk rippled from my hips to my hand, sending the top ball of green ice cream over the rim of the cone and into the air in front of me. The ball of frozen goodness landed smack dab on the back of the bent over woman, just
below the edge of