July Fifth

America turned two hundred and fifty yesterday. This morning it smells like the day after. Smoke settling low. Cut grass gone warm. Somebody's flag still out on the porch.

I keep thinking about what that number smells like. Not fireworks. Red dirt after rain in western Oklahoma. Alfalfa cut in June and left to dry. My grandmother's rose bush against a farmhouse the wind never left alone.

The Fourth I grew up with was not a production. It was folding chairs in the yard. Grape Shasta and Dr Pepper on melting ice. Hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad. Fresh cantaloupe and corn on the cob from the garden. Heat that did not break until dark. Fireworks set off from the bare road, the only smooth surface for miles. Then a few minutes of light over flat land, and quiet again. The quiet was the part I remember. The fifth of July, when everything went back to being a field.

Leland Francis is Americana in the truest sense. Every fragrance is named for a person or a place that raised me. Cowboy. Dirt Roads. 109, for Rural Route 1, Box 109, Elk City, Oklahoma. These are not themes. They are real people. Real places. Addresses.

Two hundred and fifty years is a long time.

xx,
Dillon