You might notice that my blog address, my email, and what I call myself are all Wenonah4th. So what on earth am I talking about? Any very astute scholars familiar with Longfellow might recognize that Wenonah was the daughter of Nokomis and mother of Hiawatha. It is from her that the name of my hometown of Wenonah, NJ, is taken.
http://www.wenonahnj.us/
Because Wenonah began as a summer place in the 1870s, a thriving local 4th of July celebration began, grew, continues, and hasn't changed a whole lot in all these many years. I could try to describe it thoroughly, but it really has to be experienced. It has always been very homegrown, and everyone always comes back for that one day. If you don't come home to Wenonah any other time of the year, you come back for the 4th. I have participated in the parades there almost every year since I was three years old, and have come up with our family's entry ideas since I was ten. Even in those years that I've not been in Wenonah, I still find that 4th of July stands as my favorite holiday. To use this as my online identity is intangibly more than simply going by my favorite celebration; the Fourth is a huge part of who I am.
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2 comments:
From New Jersey, huh? Well, I am originally from Long Island. Been back to New Jersey in a while? We went back to Long Island this past summer. It is much more built up than when we grew up there, not to mention expensive. We are from eastern L.I. (the Riverhead area).
We lived in Texas several times, too -- once at Ft. Hood, once in Abilene, where we went to college, once at Shepherd AFB near Wichita Falls, and once in Tyler after we retired from the A.F.
Wenonah's in south Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. We were just back over the 4th (none too surprisingly) during our post-deployment leave. The area nearby does seem to be more and more built up, although not in town per se. My husband went to school in Long Island, at Hofstra, although that wasn't his favorite stage of life!
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