I don’t know about y’all. But July 4th is a pretty important holiday at my house. Most of the family (all the sides!) and a lot of friends come over for food and foolishness.
And I’m not gonna lie. THERE IS A LOT OF FOOLISHNESS. One year we had a HUGE water balloon fight. I was winning until Nesto climbed in the window with a water hose. I don’t think I have to tell you that’s cheating.
I wish I could say I was making this story up. Only. Have we met?
I can’t even tell you how hard it was to get that much water out of my living room. I’ll just leave it at VERY. IT WAS VERY HARD. (That is what she said. I can never resist. So I stopped trying)

And then the NEXT year, we had THE GREAT SUPER SOAKER WAR of whatever year that was.
The year where I was making a mad dash for safety and stepped in a hole and tore my Achilles but GOOD.
Sidenote: Say what you want about Kobe. If he could stand on both feet after tearing his Achilles and take free throws, he’s a BAMF. The End.
All those people who work at a hospital at my house. Some of them actually clinically inclined.
And the best they could come up with was to put my foot in a bucket of ice and fix me the largest Vodka drink known to man.
And then I spent the rest of my summer in brightly colored casts (hot pink, and green…the colors, Duke! The COLORS!)

While most people would blame the Vodka, or my general clumsiness, or hidden holes in the grass, I blame Lonnie Johnson.
Because he is the (black) man who invented the Super Soaker!

In 1989 Johnson formed his own engineering firm and licensed the Super Soaker water gun to Larami Corporation. Two years later the Super Soaker generated over $200 million in retail sales and became the best selling toy in America. Over the years, Super Soaker sales have totaled close to one billion dollars. Johnson reinvested a majority of his earnings from the Super Soaker into research and development for his energy technology companies – “It’s who I am, it’s what I do.” (Huh. I thought that praise was what we do. No?)

Currently, Johnson holds over 80 patents, with over 20 more pending, and the author of several publications on spacecraft power systems.

I’d say that I’m sorry for slipping in a random gospel song except I’m not. God is everywhere! Even in random stories about my left foot.