Red Clay Roads & Dancing in the Streets
by Val White

Every summer of my childhood, we’d pack up the car and head north—trading Florida’s hurricane season for the hilly, red clay roads of Georgia. My great-grandparents on my mother’s side had nine children, one of whom was my grandfather—the original Valda. That land in Georgia, tucked between pine trees and history, had been in our family since before the Civil War.

It was a place where memories were slow-cooked, like the cauldron of boiled peanuts that always bubbled over an open flame in someone’s backyard. A place where MaMeardie’s biscuits were gospel. Where my cousins and I ran barefoot for hours, splashing in plastic kiddie pools alongside baby ducklings (which they claimed they had gotten for my birthday - I only found out later this was totally untrue) and wandering down dusty roads like we owned the world.

One summer when I was about ten, we attended a street party for the 4th of July. My great-aunt’s husband, Harlan, was playing guitar in a local band and my parents decided to take me along. It was my first real “grown-up” night out. The air was thick with barbecue and bug spray, and the grown-ups were electric with celebration. I remember standing on tiptoe, trying to see the band as strangers danced around me, their laughter spilling into the summer night.

Then, just before midnight, the band kicked off Dancing in the Streets. My mom grabbed my dad’s hand, twirled into the crowd, and sang at the top of her lungs. I stood there in awe—feeling both small and infinite—watching her spin through joy like it was her own holiday.

At the stroke of midnight, they shifted into a solemn, stirring rendition of God Bless the USA. The crowd swayed. Hands clasped hearts. And just like that, the firecrackers in the distance became less about noise and more about memory.

That night would become one of the last summers we’d spend together in Georgia before my parents’ divorce. But I don’t remember it as a sad ending. I remember it as a final stanza in a perfect song—one of family, food, fireflies, and freedom.

As we grow older, we learn that holidays aren’t just about tradition or spectacle. They’re about the music we danced to when we were young, the cousins we ran beside, and the smell of peanuts in the air. They are made of fleeting moments that somehow stay—softly glowing in the corners of our minds.

If you're lucky, you get to live a few summers that stay with you forever. And if you're really lucky, you realize you’re still that barefoot kid, dancing in the streets—just wearing nicer shoes.

Here’s to memories, to family, and to the sweet, strange miracle of feeling young every July.