So I guess I should elaborate on the July 4th incident I touched on last entry. I love July 4th. Fireworks, Family, Barbeques..not to mention it was one of my late Grandpa Joe’s favorite holidays of the whole year. That’s one reason why we decided to hold our wedding on July 4th next year. It just seemed like the perfect choice. It’s on a Saturday next year, our venue is a tent downtown (free fireworks)..it all just fell into place. We wanted to do something special for July 4th since it was one year til the big day. Nothing big, just spend time together, dinner and fireworks.
We went to Binghamton for the weekend to get out of the normal day to day life and visit his parents and family too. We got to visit with all of Ry’s nieces, nephews and siblings at a family BBQ and at night we made plans to watch the fireworks at the Binghamton Mets game downtown. Everything was great until we made the mistake of assuming the area immediately around the outside of the Met’s stadium had to be safe enough to stand out and watch fireworks. We drove around the general vicinity, found an empty side street to park on and walked to a corner with a good view of the sky over the stadium. Little did we know the Met’s were in overtime..and were going to be awhile. Everything was fine, Ry, Zoe and I stood against a building and waited for the fireworks to begin. Then, the creepiness began! An older disheveled guy comes walking by..then stops and turns around to pet Zoe and start talking to us. Totally fine! The guy’s lonely, it’s a holiday..no problem. Well, maybe. The problem started when early in the conversation his topics were hateful and only progressed to be more and more violent. Not directed at us, but progessively more and more disturbing and uncomfortable. He started our convo talking about how the “indians” were screwing him, the working guy, with their lack of taxes and such. Just nod and smile, not going to argue with some stranger and start a fight. Eventually the convo turned into his father abusing him as a child, cutting him up and the like..and how he broke some guys legs and killed another guy. I just stood there nodding and trying to seem empathetic, meanwhile ry stood there fidgeting with keys in his pocket. I didn’t want to say anything that might set this guy off and turn his anger at us, so I just nodded and agreed..hoping..PRAYING..for the fireworks to start, in hopes the show would make this guy move on his way. No luck! Eventually his conversation had him right in my face slamming his fist into his hand, explaining what he did to a guy..and we had to make some kind of move to leave because it was getting worse and we had a feeling we may get jumped if we didn’t skidaddle. Ry made an excuse saying “oh my brother was supposed to meet us here, I should call him and see what’s up.” And off we went back down the side street to our car..Safety! It kind of ruined the whole tone to the night, adrenaline pumping from the whole situation, both uneasy and uncomfortable. We found a parking lot a few miles away to watch the show instead from the car. Not as nice of a view, but hey..not getting jumped and staying alive is nice!
I hope our July 4th next year works out better. Hehe. 😀