Episode 159
Fireworks, Food, and Freedom: The 4th of July Episode
We figured, hey it’s the 4th of July. Let’s skip the heavy stuff and just talk food, fireworks, and all the random things that make this holiday what it is.
This week, we're keeping it light because it's the 4th of July and nobody needs a lecture while they're flipping burgers or chasing kids around the backyard. We’re talking backyard games, cookout must haves, fireworks chaos, and all the weird traditions that somehow make this holiday one of our favorites.
Steve breaks down what 4th of July looks like in Clarkston, Michigan from parades with candy being hurled at people to backyard mortars (yes, really). Meanwhile, Brad shares why his house turns into party central and how growing up near State Fair Park meant fireworks from six cities in one night plus some good old fashioned sparkler wars.
We get into all of it: the meats, the sides, the debates about potato salad (Brad’s got strong feelings), and the game day setup that includes cornhole, pickle, and even a little jarts nostalgia. If you’ve ever timed a smoke bomb for maximum drama as a kid or used watermelon mixed with Kool-Aid this one’s for you.
Highlights:
- Why Brad refuses to eat American potato salad.
- Clarkston’s chaotic parades and homemade firework show.
- What it takes to host a party when it’s “your house, but someone else’s.
- What fireworks, candy, and Kool-Aid-covered watermelon have in common.
- The backyard games that bring back the best memories (yes, including jarts).
- The real reason red licorice and Frito cheese dip might be the perfect combo.
Are you enjoying the show? Share it with a friend, hit subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We’re here for the laughs, the real talk, and the blue collar truth holiday or not.
Check out the Blue Collar BS website.
Steve Doyle:
Brad Herda:
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Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Blue Collar BS podcast. I am your co-host Brad along with the ever popular, so often wonderful, Michigan yander dude from Clarkston. There you go. There you go, It's okay. Hey, it's, it's, it's 4th of July. This episode is releasing on July 4th, 2025.
Steve Doyle (:Steve. Hey, I figure out where you're running with this one. All right, let's go.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:And we've been struggling what we should do on this show. Should we turn it into something special? Should we just turn it into whatever? And I guess we're just going to keep this pretty lighthearted because it's 4th of July, right? It's a holiday and we are. Everybody should be out celebrating. You should be listening to this show while smoking your meats, putting things in the barbecue, eating, eating all the licorice and cotton candy at the parades, all the things so.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah? Yeah?
Steve Doyle (:You're not in the meat sweat.
Brad Herda (:What is a Fourth of July in Clarkston like in Steve Doyle's life?
Steve Doyle (:Fourth of July. Well, we do we do have the parade, so we do do have a nice local parade that everybody goes to. And there is a sheer abundance of candy that is hurled at the onlookers. Hurled, hurled. mean, there are, know, there are some nice people. They do place, you know, the hard candies down in little kids hands. But then, you know, there are those that cater to the adults and they just start chucking candy at people. And it's quite great.
Brad Herda (:hurled candy that's hurled.
Steve Doyle (:So we do have the parade. It does shut down. No, it's usually good.
Brad Herda (:Is it crappy candy or is it good candy? mean, is it like, is it like dollar store? Here's here, we're to get 40 pounds for a $3 type candy or what?
Steve Doyle (:Some is, some not. Most stuff is like, no, it's, you know, got Jolly Ranchers, Dum Dums, you know. There's, mean, we do, there are ice cream trucks that are in the parade and they're passing out ice cream, like push pops and things like that. So you kind of get a mix of everything and there's usually a flyover.
That happens. So sometimes it's the warthogs that'll fly over. It's a bomber that flies over. it's, it's pretty cool. It's, they do it as a training run. So we, we know that it's, well, we know it's a training run. It's a training exercise for the military. And it's one of the straightest roads goes on for, for several, you know, it's good a hundred mile long road that they can just.
fly straight down and you hit a bunch of towns along the way as they're doing their flight path.
Brad Herda (:Has there ever been a battle of parades at the village lines on that long straight road?
Steve Doyle (:No.
Steve Doyle (:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're can't they're they're really can't.
Brad Herda (:You should probably bring that up. You guys should do that. You should have, you should have cross parades.
Steve Doyle (:No, no, there's, there's enough cops there. Like, no, no, no, you, there's so many cops there. They block traffic off. mean, it's, it's, it's great. It's good for the families. but do you not, do you not try to come through that area at all? with, with the construction we have now on 75, like it's just going to be a hoot trying to move two feet. Like going, going from one side of the town to the other, typically, you know, it's
Brad Herda (:Parade Battle.
Steve Doyle (:miles, but it might take you 25 minutes. Now it's 45 minutes because of all the construction. Yeah, it's great. know, but then, you know, after the parade, you know, you got your barbecues, everybody's sitting out on the lake, doing the, doing the lake stuff. and then you, you've got your fireworks. So you've, you know, pick your poison of where you're getting fireworks from. Cause fireworks are not just the day of, you know, it's pretty much because it's going to be on the Friday. It's going to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday night.
Brad Herda (:Jesus. Good for you.
Steve Doyle (:Detroit has the mutual fireworks with Windsor a little earlier. So that's usually during the week, the week before. So that'll be, you know, that's pretty nice. So yeah, that's kind of what a typical day is. You kind of, kind of just kind of ease right into it, maybe spend a little time at the beach. Then you've followed up with fireworks.
Brad Herda (:Okay, and since you live in the middle of nowhere, so middle of nowhere Detroit Clarkston area. Are you are your neighbors doing a lot of stupid shit and firing off their own stuff and all night long and that type of stuff and into the woods into the woods and let's hope for the best.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, not all night long.
No, we don't do it all night long, but yeah, do we do stupid stuff? Yes, we do. No, because there's too many trees. No, there's too many trees. Most of us all have some clearing if we're doing stuff like this where we can launch without hitting trees. So, but we do, we do buy mortars. We do.
Brad Herda (:to use the dirt road as your launching partner or are you using?
Brad Herda (:Great.
Steve Doyle (:And they're amazing. My wife. The dog. Well, this would be the first year the dog would hear it because we did get a dog a little earlier this year. But yeah, this would be the first time the dog would hear that. So probably be a little more conscious that I did fire off all my mortars last year that I had hidden. I did have hidden mortars. I did have hidden mortars.
Brad Herda (:until the dogs go crazy and you can't.
Brad Herda (:had hidden mortars. Doyle's hidden mortars.
Steve Doyle (:And every now and then I would pull one out. My wife was like, what are you doing? Then I'd run and she'd all start laughing as I'm running away. And then it will go. You just hear this, the chest, the, you know, and yeah. And but it was, but it was deep and you're like, oh yeah. And you just see it keep going and going and going. And all of a sudden it's just like the spray. It covers everything, your house, everything. It's amazing. You know, and then, and then you.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, it's really amazing when all everybody else's shit falls in my pool. That's I love that.
Steve Doyle (:You know, that part is not so fun. My wife said, what is all this stuff? I was like, it's all the packing. So. Yes, exactly. It. It does, and it's. Everywhere, it's everywhere, you know, and she goes and buys these little like what she thinks are fireworks. I'm like this. Doesn't even get off the sidewalk. Like.
Brad Herda (:here's all the stuff that fell from the sky. yeah. What goes up does come down. Gravity is an all time winner.
Brad Herda (:spinners.
Steve Doyle (:It doesn't even I'm like what did you you bought smoke bombs great let's go throw those in the woodchuck holes.
Brad Herda (:We used to go buy smoke bombs at our at our little at the way when I was way way like growing up our Hardware store that was in the area They'd have them and we'd go buy them after we got our you know five cents a piece or whatever We would take them up we lived by an overpass the freeway and then overpasses and then bridge where all the cars were to go to get underneath and we'd hang up up on top and we'd all get in the line and we'd get like
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:everybody ready to go to time it out from the stop sign for the smoke bombs delight to let them roll down the hill to go into the middle of the streets. Cars would be coming by and there's all this here five or six smoke bombs going off as cars are trying to come through the underneath the bridge go what's going on and we just sit there and laugh.
Steve Doyle (:Smoke that.
Yeah, all kinds of fun stuff like that.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, correct. Yeah, that was that was those. Yeah. Yeah, and they were 1015 cents. No big deal.
Steve Doyle (:Those are the days, right?
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, do you ever do you ever think about getting everybody back together to go do it again? come on. Well, yeah.
Brad Herda (:No, no Some are dead some of those kids are dead That'll be tough a couple live in the area, but I think we're past our climbing up to hang out underneath the bridge days
Steve Doyle (:you know, maybe one last time. Maybe one. So what's it look? What's what's fourth of July look like for you?
Brad Herda (:Yeah, and think we're good.
Brad Herda (:So it has the last I don't know decade or so it is a party it's not our party it's my brother-in-law's party at our house so we used to go to a park here in we used to go to the park on 4th of July and had a lake and different things and then my mother-in-law and father-in-law there they were older and I followed on sit there and
Steve Doyle (:Mm.
Brad Herda (:have heat strokes, he wouldn't drink water and all this other stuff. And it's like, after we put the pool in in 2008, like, why are we going to this lake to take all this stuff, sit in the sand, deal with all this other all these other people, all these things? Why are we doing this? Why don't we just have it at our right? Well, and everybody just brings the same things, but they just don't bring them to the park. They just bring it all to our house and we have
Steve Doyle (:and
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Right.
Brad Herda (:40 to 50 people floating around our house, sitting in the pool, doing whatever. I've been doing that for the last, I don't know, so it'll probably be 15 years or so now. Growing up, I grew up by State Fair Park, so we could see fireworks from our backyard in like six or seven different communities. we would get, you know, dad would...
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:nice.
Brad Herda (:Right put stuff on the Weber get our sausages peppers onions, whatever and then We'd hang around and have sparkler fights
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Did you you launch bottle rockets at each other?
Brad Herda (:Uh, no, uh, we know we're we're in the city. No, we did not. Um, but my parents would buy a sport because my yeah, they just weren't those parents. Um, but they would we'd we'd have sparkler fights and throw sparks, you know, throw the hot rods at every bit each other and
Steve Doyle (:You
Okay.
Brad Herda (:It's like, OK, great. But you could see fireworks from like five or six different communities from our mom and dad's house when we were growing up. So it wouldn't necessarily go anywhere because we just sit there and watch the backyard. But yeah, it's. And this year there's party 2.0 because some friends are saying, hey, why don't we use your pool on the 5th? OK, cool. So I get to do back to back duties at the house. So this year.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm, nice.
Steve Doyle (:Okay. man. Man. Yeah, that sounds like that actually does sound like fun.
Brad Herda (:have fun.
Brad Herda (:but the my my mother-in-law she makes American potato salad gross
Steve Doyle (:So, okay, all right, time out, time out. Let's talk about this. Potato salad, because, you know, we can...
Brad Herda (:I am a German potato salad guy 100%.
Steve Doyle (:You're a what kind of potato salad guy? German potato salad. All right. So let's break it down. American potato salad. What's in your American potato salad?
Brad Herda (:German potato salad 100%.
Brad Herda (:It's yuck. It's all mayonnaise and just gross and hard boiled eggs are just like, no disgusting.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:All right. All right. So you got you got mayonnaise. You got mayonnaise. You got hard boiled eggs. You got potatoes. What else you got in yours?
Brad Herda (:There's paprika usually. There's it's just it's not it's just gross. It's just terrible. I don't like it. I just don't like the taste of it. It's terrible. I like you know the potatoes aren't right. I like the sliced potatoes. I like the I like the bitterness of the of the German the German sauce. I love the bacon that goes into the German potato salad.
Steve Doyle (:Okay. All right, so give me some what's in the German
Steve Doyle (:all right. All right. All right.
Brad Herda (:no no bueno on me. So so what's the meat of choice for 4th of July cookout?
Steve Doyle (:No.
Steve Doyle (:of choice is steak.
Brad Herda (:Are you serious? Like what are we talking like? Revise? we talking round steak? What are we talking here?
Steve Doyle (:No, it doesn't really matter. It's just steak, grilled steak. I don't... Not really. I mean, the cut of steak, well, I mean, it does, but it doesn't. It's all in how you cook it and prepare it. So it doesn't really... It doesn't affect what I'm going to... Like, okay, we went and got some... We went and got steak. Okay, what'd you get? You get a New York strip? Did you get a ribeye? Did you get a t-bone? Like, what did you get? I just got this steak. All right.
Brad Herda (:Well, it does matter. A steak does matter.
Steve Doyle (:What do want me to do with it? I want you to cook it. All right. All right. want you to cook it. OK.
Brad Herda (:It's like saying I just got peanut butter. Well, what kind of peanut butter?
Steve Doyle (:Right. Did you get skippy? Did you get jiff? Did you get crunchy smooth? Like would you get? Yeah, well, I mean peanut butter in our house is Jeff like say I need peanut butter. You meant you need Jeff. That's that's it. But yeah, no, it's it's literally could be any kind of steak.
Brad Herda (:just peanut butter. it all natural? it?
Brad Herda (:So what, you just go to the butcher or what? You just go to the store and it's just a rack of steak? I mean, what's the cut? mean, you just can't buy steak.
Steve Doyle (:I mean, you go to Costco. Yeah, you can go to Costco. You get steak.
Steve Doyle (:I'm not the one usually buying it. No, we don't do a lot of hot dogs. Nobody here is a hot dog fan. Brats, we could throw down some brats too. No brand.
Brad Herda (:my god. It just stink. Okay.
Brad Herda (:Brand, brand of choice.
Steve Doyle (:Just it's basically, it just has to meet the basic criteria that it has to be low FODMAP for food allergies. So no garlic, no onions in it, in the spices. So it's gotta be.
Brad Herda (:so, so bland.
Steve Doyle (:No, I mean it can have pepper and cheese and stuff like that, but you know it can't have there definitely cannot be any garlic or onion. So so that's the that's the fun part as you get older all the food allergies. Kidding.
Brad Herda (:That's a hard one because a lot of that will have garlic and onion powder in it.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, so that's why it's like brand. don't I'm not brand person right? Costco has a good their generic Kirkland brand. Good brats.
Brad Herda (:Doesn't have onion in it doesn't have onion garlic in it. Really OK. See, cause we were you know we got lots. I mean we not only do we get cheese curds and beer, we have sausages all over the place here in Wisconsin, right? Clements Youthinger Clements Youthingers Johnsonville. Lots of different brand names around here that are just. And every.
Steve Doyle (:No. Yep. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Well...
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:some of the local grocers, they do their own as well and the piggly wigglies and the sendex of the world's like, hmm, okay. So lots of different flavors, lots of different things.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yeah, get the standard around here would be Kogal. Kogal brand is down here. that's, you know, those are they're good, but I'm not big into the hot dog and bologna scene. So not my thing. But. Not my thing. mean, for some that are open.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Alright, what's the candy or snack of choice throughout the day? What's the... Hey, it's sitting on the picnic table and every time you walk by you just gotta go.
Steve Doyle (:Nothing. Usually it's watermelon. That's it. Yeah. There's not a whole lot of, we don't do a whole lot of candy here.
Brad Herda (:Really?
Brad Herda (:like Vodka'd up or just plain old Vodka, plain old.
Steve Doyle (:No, just I mean the trend that we're dealing with right now is actually taking packets of Kool-Aid mix and you cut up you cut up your watermelon and you pour the just the packet of Kool-Aid mix on it and it tastes you get the sourness of the But it tastes delicious it tastes delicious fruit punch is the best one
Brad Herda (:What was the thing with the... What was the candy that had the stick, the dipping stick? had the... Yes. So you're making watermelon fun dip, essentially.
Steve Doyle (:fun dip, fun dip. Fun dip. Pretty much, but you sprinkle, you sprinkle the, pour like a package on a container. You shake up the container to get it fully mixed. Yeah, that's lights out. That's lights up. Yeah, try it. Fruit punch. That's solid.
Brad Herda (:pouring Kool-Aid on water.
Brad Herda (:Never would have thought about that, ever.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, I mean, you could you could even do some to heen on it, but that's a little I didn't I didn't care for the to heen on it.
Brad Herda (:No, because that should go with your tequila sours or tequila soda. should say not tequila.
Steve Doyle (:That should just go with your tequila and lime.
Brad Herda (:your ranch water. Right, your tahine in your ranch water.
Steve Doyle (:Tequila and lime. Yep, all day. Let's go. Me and me and Uncle Don are here for the party.
Brad Herda (:Okay. Whatever.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, me and Uncle Don were here for the party. So, you know, no way, Jose, we no way hold that no way on the Jose.
Brad Herda (:Okay, Jose, slow the roll, Jose.
Brad Herda (:So, so watermelons, so no snack, no candy, no none of that stuff from the family gathering at the picnic.
Steve Doyle (:Nope, nope, we don't do, yeah, we don't do candy. Now, if you go to my mom's house, there's tons of candy, but the Skittles, the peanut M &Ms, types of stuff.
Brad Herda (:Okay, so what's the thing that you can't pass up?
Steve Doyle (:The thing I can't pass up, Sour Patch Kids, I'm done. If they're out, I'm done. And Peanut &M's, I'm done. Those are the two things. What are yours?
Brad Herda (:Okay. I love licorice. All right, so red, black, black, no, no, thanks. No, that is that is like that is like Jäger Meister all over again. No, you. No, no, not at all. Nope.
Steve Doyle (:Black or red?
Steve Doyle (:Black is the bomb. That is yes all day.
Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.
Brad Herda (:Red licorice all day long. Especially like the small one is you can do the peel off to peel off the little strings with them. The peel licorice that is that I will gorge myself on quite often throughout the Fourth of July weekend there. That's one. For whatever reason, My sister-in-law.
Steve Doyle (:Okay. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:She'll bring in Fritos and then the Frito-Lay cheese dip in the can. I'm like, that's so like nachos are my vice. Like chips and salsa are my biggest vice. I could eat chips and salsa like for dinner, probably every day of the week if I wanted to, know, chips and cheese or nachos or something. But that is just one of those, okay, go buy dip, go buy dip, here you go. And combine that with the licorice and people are like, that's gross.
Steve Doyle (:yeah, yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah?
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:And then don't knock it till you try it.
Steve Doyle (:wait, wait, we'll time out, time out. Are you saying one hand is... Okay, that's I was like, wait, time out. like, we need to clarify things in there.
Brad Herda (:They don't they don't go together, but you eat them not together. They're separately right like hey, here's a little cheesy and sauce and then you follow up a little sweetness from the from the licorice. Like OK great. Now I will say that come dinner time or whatever you might have a little stomach going. I don't know if I'm hungry right now.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, but you know, as long as you have little uncle done, you're all good.
Brad Herda (:All right, what is the game of choice throughout?
Steve Doyle (:Cornhole.
Brad Herda (:And are you playing official rules or are you playing tailgate rules?
Steve Doyle (:Depends on who we play with.
Brad Herda (:This is your story. It can be whatever you'd like.
Steve Doyle (:Well, mean, it depends on who you're playing with. If you're playing with the kids, you're just tossing bags. But if you're playing with brothers, if you're playing with with with with brothers, yeah, you're playing official rules and they're going down.
Brad Herda (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:full 27 feet and away we go.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. yeah. Yep.
Brad Herda (:Do you do you actually get out there and make the boxes and mark them up and paint them up for the day?
Steve Doyle (:I already have boxes I've already made.
Brad Herda (:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Steve Doyle (:no, no, you just throw them out, you measure, you're done.
Brad Herda (:But you need the four feet either way left to right as well for your bot for your
Steve Doyle (:Nah, too many rules. Too many rules. I don't need that bureaucracy.
Brad Herda (:And are you are you a bounce on good or bounce on no good?
Steve Doyle (:however it gets on. Bounce on is fine.
Not many people score points bouncing on, but I mean, by all means, if that's what you want, that's how you're going to score a point. Go ahead, because we're airmailing these suckers. So. So what's your what's your game of choice?
Brad Herda (:Okay, really? Alrighty.
Brad Herda (:So we will have. Cornhole be here. I've got two sets of boards. Problem is I got a sloped yard a little bit, so if it's windy and get a little got a little slope here and there across that 27 feet, but that's OK. So have cornhole we will have. Toss the football around. Sometimes it's.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Depending on how old the kids are and which kids show up there might be a little game of pickle going on With the baseball baseball gloves and stuff and doing some of that but Growing up though at my grandparents house that was horseshoes and that was that was always the fun thing and then I at my parents house because we between so that whole day in between will wrap 4th of July in between the sidewalk and Street you had the grass that was there
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm, yep.
Brad Herda (:And we would actually have charts. We would play charts. So it was if it was both official old school blue red, blue red, yellow circle, we'd actually take the sprinkler sprinkling can get the get it wet so that the chart would stick because a lot of times in the middle of summer is way too hard, way too firm. So the charts would just bounce. But yes, we would we would play charts all the time. And it's like, and guess what? No one died.
Steve Doyle (:Official old school Jarts with a metal tip.
YEEEE
Steve Doyle (:yeah. yeah.
Steve Doyle (:No one died. No one tried catching it.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, we would catch the other thing we would do is we play first we would play frisbee out in the out in the road, too, so That was a lot of fun, too. We would just do really stupid shit with frisbee and See how much see how far we could skip and bounce and curve and turn and and then we had a basketball hoop up in the in the alleyway too So that would get a lot of use growing up
Steve Doyle (:Mm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cool.
Brad Herda (:So yeah. So yeah, you know, it's 4th of July. It's coming up on that next year. So was this $249 this year? Is that correct? Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Nice. Nice.
Steve Doyle (:249
Brad Herda (:anniversary USA 249 because next year is 250.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, would be. That would be.
Brad Herda (:Alright, so keep that in mind. Yeah. We will begin our 250th year of of independence and let's hope we can keep it that way. And. Let's just hope we can keep it that way. So alright Sir, you have a great 4th of July. Enjoy and we will talk to you soon, Sir. Alright, thanks bye.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, I will now.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:All right, thanks, you too.
Steve Doyle (:All right, sounds good. Enjoy it.
