This picture captures the most genuine country-style Fourth of July I’ve celebrated in years. We were visiting relatives at a giant farmhouse surrounded by dirt roads and corn fields outside the tiny town of Norborne, Missouri, population 805. We had a homemade potluck dinner with piles of home-baked goodies like peanut butter pie and fried chicken, and bottle rockets going off in every direction (even under the table, where my uncle was setting them off to scare my dad, and everyone else… surprise!).

I grabbed this shot as a little boy ran into the corn field for a game of hide and seek. It swallowed him and a dozen other screaming kids up instantly. They were there, then gone. So you saw no one, but heard a corn field filled with giggles and laughter.