A glorious Fourth of July in Cayucos

July 10, 2026

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” and “Life on The Mississippi, 1969” are currently on Amazon.

It started out slowly. Coffee on the deck at 8 o’clock while drivers searched for parking spots on my street, anxious to get a good seat at the parade, which was at 10. I ate a banana. Kept moving during the parade and was pleased that several of the antique cars holding waving geezers were replaced by what seemed hundreds of children running around in circles acting like children, dribbling basketballs and tossing footballs, lending the parade some needed excitement and charm amid the music and floats.

I retired to my pad and decided rationally that I was too old to partake in the usual partying on the 4th, which gets wild and, toward the end, rowdy and sodden, with a lot of drunks stumbling and weaving about – like I used to decades ago.

I called my sister and nephew and reported how proud of myself I was for staying home and resisting the self massacre I had subjected myself years before. My huge tattered flag – with 48 stars – hung limply from my deck.

I was feeling pretty patriotic. But I was getting edgy. I knew that if I started off toward downtown I would be confronted by people partying in their yards. But I wanted to at least take a nice walk and observe the hilarity, because, well, it was 250th and I wanted to see just how whacko it could get.

But I knew I could not venture out into this atmosphere, with everybody wishing me a happy 4th, without bracing myself with a big helping of mid-noon pasta and a good strong vodka on the rocks.

So I enjoyed one on my deck and set out down the street and was quickly hailed while passing a yard party. I sat down in a lounge chair and asked for a vodka. There was no vodka. Do you have bourbon? Oh yes.

I renewed old acquaintances and met new ones and was complimented on my Irish drinking cap, which is 50 years old and taken out of mothballs, because I felt this cap helped me with attitude and identity. When it comes to drinking, well, I’m a professional.

With a decent glow, I set out to Schooner’s, just to see how loony it was. I entered the outside patio, stood observing the melee, when my friend, a former basketball player, big Turk, came down the stairs.

We immediately crossed the street and entered the closing Cayucos Tavern and found big Malcolm sitting at the bar with the brother of the owner. We settled in. I weigh 190 pounds. Between them, big Malcolm and big Turk, towering dudes, weigh around 540 pounds.

I was up against it as usual but game.

I had two vodkas before we were run out, and the three of us managed to wedge ourselves into the upstairs bar at Schooner.

Nowhere to sit in in the small packed bar but my achy knees never hurt when I’m relatively buzzed. I had me a nice bountiful glass of straight vodka. I was still trying to counteract the bourbon and digest the pasta.

My enormous pals were guzzling Guinness. Everybody was so friendly. And drunk. I guess, at this point, I was drunk, too. There is no better feeling. Trust me. And there was a different vibe about this 4th. It was monumental. I began to feel it.

I was surrounded by young people. My pals are both at least 25 years my junior. Gazing through the pleasant golden fog, I realized there were no old fogies about, and I needed to rest my feet, so I sat down beside three young girls, all pretty, one beautiful.

I sat beside the beauty. She was from Eugene, Oregon. She was bright and coherent. She was cheerful an fun. As were her friends. We began a conversation. What was it about? Possibly my regaling her with stories and sage advice. Several times she picked up the wallet that fell from my back pocket and handed it to me, along with my sunglasses, and suggested I keep the wallet in my front pocket so I didn’t lose it.

I began to feel I was making time with her. I bought her a Pacifico and myself another vodka. Yes, I am 83 next month, and am largely useless, but remembrances of being a man in the bar life decades ago renewed some kind of delusion, however transitory, and I actually felt like I was making time, at least until a movie star handsome kid showed up and she introduced me to him as her boyfriend.

I gave up my seat to the gracious stud and pushed out into the melee and ordered another vodka. Fireworks were going on but I found myself talking to other young girls whom I felt were not sufficiently attended to. I picked up the slack. In time, the boy friend of the girl I had been talking to was gone and I resettled beside her and continued our conversation.

Big Malcolm and Big Turk were on my other side. On my right were the three girls.

More and more young people were forging in, packing the bar. Then some young guy in a cowboy hat was telling me how he was a real cowboy and did not like all the techie BS going around and liked doing real “man’s work”, and he appraised me and said he could tell I had done real man’s work, but I told him that mostly I had been a cab driver and bartender and did not inform him that compared to the usual high velocity American working class ethic. I viewed myself as somewhat worthless and a slacker and did not inform him I was a writer.

“I wanna be like you when I’m in my sixties,” he said.

“I’m in my eighties, bro’.”

“No you’re not.”

“I am.”

The big boys told him this was true.

“Then I wanna be like you when I’m eighty.”

The girls were gone and now I was talking to a wiry muscular young guy who was in the United States Marines. He, too, wanted to be like me when he was an old man. I told him that no, he should aspire to others, and that not many had the capacity or foolishness or insanity to aspire to my self hood.

“You can’t act like I have all these years, son, because the world is different. You can’t get away with acting like I have. My generation had it easier than any other. Ever. Trust me.”

He was a gungho Marine. He wanted to fight for the country.

“Fight for your brothers,” I said. “They are the most important people you will ever meet. They will be your best friends ever, even if you never see them again after you get out of the service.”

He knew that. We kept shaking hands. I was awash in young people. I held court. They were magnificent. The girls sassy and confident, the boys reverent and respectful and genuine.

I learned a lesson—these kids are great and they were celebrating our 250th, possibly without knowing why, but so what. No fucking politics.

Big Malcolm and Big Turk announced they were leaving. I bid farewell around midnight and don’t remember much about walking home, only that I woke up on my recliner at 3 in the morning, head throbbing, mouth cotton candy, fully clothed, my sneakers still on my feet, the TV on, and didn’t regret a thing, and lived through Sunday.

How I don’t know. Certainly, hopefully a last hurrah of this madness and mindlessness, eh? Yeh, right.