Chicken on the 4th of July

Ages ago, when I was a teenager, my mother was grooving to the beat of Chicago's Saturday in the Park. Like many people do, she misheard the lyrics and sang (off-key--she was tone deaf), "Saturday, in the park, chicken on the 4th of July" instead of "you'd think it was the 4th of July." I think of this every Independence Day, and try to have chicken.

Of course, I think of my mother, who died at the ripe old age of 53 from lung cancer. She was an avid smoker. She had her whimsical side, which considering her trying life, made those moments very special. I can't hear Paul Simon's Slip Sliding Away without hearing her tunelessly singing along as we tried to drive the car post-blizzard. We were living in Hampton Bays, NY taking care of her mother, my grandmother, who was recuperating from a hospital stay. This was in 1979. I was lucky to be able to spend three weeks with these two women who were smart, funny and irreverent.

Now it's 2012. "Time keeps on slippin', slippin,' slippin' into the future"(Steve Miller Band). But we'll always have chicken on the 4th of July.