Water-Hole is a very tiny community located near absolutely nothing .... well if you considered the ghost town of what was Air Force Base Housing something. What about the abandoned Air Force base itself ? Water-Hole is located in a space which is 1.5 hours from S.F. or Yosemite; in other words located so far from any thing exciting it has to create it's own excitement.

Some how over the years, Water-Hole has focused on the fourth of July like some places focus on Christmas or other local harvest day events, like Gilroy and the garlic festival. Somehow over time the Fourth has been for Water-Hole what the Macy's Christmas Day Parade or the Rose Bowl Parade has been to bigger cities. It has become the official/unofficial reunion of families and high schools students for years. Sometimes everyone, even people you are unsure of wanting to run into, is there.

Water-Hole, unlike the next-door larger city (let's call it "Said-So"), does not even try to pretend to be a cool place. Said-So is where all the officers settled (once upon a time when there was an Air Force Base here) and mixed with the once rich tourists on their way to Yosemite. Said-So wants desperately to be the next S.F. - it has the Junior College and waits with baited breath for the arrival of the new University of California. Water-Hole on the other hand has the new federal prison to boast about. It is where the "non-coms" chose to live when they could afford to buy property rather then live in base housing. "Non-coms" are people in the military who are not officers but who still have a bit of rank.  Water-Hole is also unlike Wilton (a nearby smaller city) who's early roots are to be found in a biker population. It is the home town of Manson (not the sissy one), who by the way never really felt out of place there.

What is the reason our little affair of the season is so well known? It has to do with the number of persons who have escaped this small town. They go to big places and get nostalgic and begin the tale of 4th of July in Water-Hole.

*Name of city changed

My girl lives in the North country. She describes herself proudly as a hippie, and she wears it well. Hybrid and I traveled that long road up there to celebrate the coming of her son Broedy. He will be here in August. I was happy to see that the tradition of a shower being a mixed event is being honored. Fathers were giving advice to Jeremy in the kitchen while Kendra was being reassured in the living room.