Happy Independence Day. Welcome Summer.

I am one of those who believes that summer really starts on July 4th.
This whole Memorial day kick off to summer, doesn't kick it with me.
July 4th is the unofficial start of Summer. And the 4th felt like that to me. We took a different tack this year on the 4th.

We hung out at the OC office for a bit and then we walked down to
the beach. We found a beautiful vantage point to watch the fireworks up and down the coast.

We could see the fireworks from Salisbury to Hampton.


It was pretty cool. Watching little waves peel off under the glow of the fireworks was unique. Each year we typically sit on the rocks and watch. This year we too to standing on the wall. The crowds seemed manageable and well behaved.

Was it the best fireworks I've ever seen? Oh hell no.

There is nothing that could beat the year that Cory, Kim Leo, David Robinson, and myself watched the fireworks from Kim's apartment that overlooked the Charles and the Esplanade.

It was the last year Arthur Fielder conducted the BSO. Nothing could beat that. And it has stayed that way to this day.



Watching the Fourth Of July Fireworks display in Boston is always special. After all, this is where the Revolutionary War started. Speaking of that war...I wonder what the Britt's do on this day in
Great Britain? Do they hide and sulk all day? Or do they suck it up and acknowledge the Americans? Because we did kick their asses. And we refused to pay their taxes. Just saying.

A year has passed since we lost both Ed O'Connell and John "JT" Taylor. Ed passed on July 1st, 2014, and JT passed on July 6th, 2014. Still it is hard to believe that a whole year has passed.
This July 1st we had some wild weather here on the coast.

Brian Nevins was out shooting the natural light show and he wrote to me saying he kept thinking that Ed was at the Wall shooting. Turns out, Brian didn't know that it was the 1 year anniversary of his passing. I was driving home with Cory after attending my aunt's wake when the clouds went dark and then the sky turned into a magical looking painting. We only had our I-phones. But we shot a bunch of cool photos with those things.



Nevins and Ed were always jockeying for the best Rainbow shot. Same with John Carden. We all knew it was a waist of time trying to get the best rainbow shot with Nevins around. Still it was always fun trying. Here's Ed and Brian during better times.



Ed put together this gallery for local surf photographers at the Provident Bank in Hampton. God we miss him.



Left to right: Ryan Denning, Ed, me, John Carden, and Ryan Scura.
Wish we could go back in time. Wishing we knew for sure if Ed had anything to do with that insane light show on July 1st.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of John "JT" Taylor's passing.
Another bitter pill to swallow. JT was such a icon at one certain break here in NH. He owned that place for a while back in the day. And he surfed it right up to the time when he could no longer paddle. That's when the cancer finally took him on July 6th, 2014.

I look at some of the surfers who paddle out there these days, and I know that a good many of them, have no idea who JT was. But I suppose that is true in all walks of life.



We are all born. We grow up. We fall in love with surfing. We marry and settle down near the ocean. Then we all die. Nobody is getting out of this. It's what we all do before we get our tickets punched. Live your life like JT did. He surfed right up to the end.



And you better have a good sense of humor if you plan on living here year round. Of course there is always the option to travel. And the two pics above was one of those times. JT and I ventured down into the tropics in the late 70's. And we scored some amazing waves and made some lifelong friends. Jeff Chamberlain took the photo of JT charging into Little Apple Bay. The bottom pic is a frame grab from my super 8mm film I made.

I will post both Ed's paddle, and JT's tribute in the video section.

"Surfing, Rainbows, and Remembering Old Friends,
Heals All Wounds"