FACES OF FREEDOM AREA RESIDENTS FEEL FORTUNATE TO CALL AMERICA HOME.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

When you go looking for a face to put on the Fourth of July, you find it with the Meyers family on Katherine Avenue in Van Nuys, and Terry Wessig and her husband, Bill, living over on Archwood Street in Winnetka.

You also meet Luisa Mendoza and her two children living in a two-bedroom apartment on Oxnard Street and listen to her tell you a story that cuts right to the heart of what this day is all about.

Independence and freedom.

They don't come easy and they don't come cheap, Luisa says.

``I don't mean to be rude, but an awful lot of people seem to take these things for granted,'' says the 31-year-old Nicaraguan, who is studying to become a Head Start schoolteacher.

She's not being rude. She's just being honest.

Today, Luisa will take her 10-year-old daughter, Emma, and 7-year-old son, Joey, down to Long Beach from North Hollywood on the Blue Line so they can enjoy the fireworks show off the Queen Mary.

And, like on past Fourth of Julys - ever since the kids began to get old enough to understand a little bit about their roots - Luisa will use the day to fill in a few more of the blanks of her own past.

It's important, she says, if her children are ever to understand how fortunate they are to be living here.

``My children have a future they never would have had in my country,'' she says. ``They have been blessed to live in a country of freedom of speech and choice.''

To make them understand, she will tell them about uncles and aunts they will never get to meet, and childhood friends from Nicaragua who never got the chance to grow up.

They were lined up against walls during the bloody civil war in her country when she was only 7, and shot to death - right before her eyes.

She'll tell her kids about Grandpa Arnaldo Arcia, and how he woke her up early one morning to drive her to a nearby airport where a waiting airplane would take dozens of young children like her to safety in America.

``The last thing I saw as the plane took off was my grandfather standing there waving a white handkerchief at me, saying goodbye,'' Luisa says.

A week later, he was dead - lined up against a wall and shot.

So, enjoy the fireworks today, kids, because they don't come easy or cheap - these things we're celebrating today.

Independence and freedom.

It is the end of an era over on Archwood Street where for the past 32 years, Terry and Bill Wessig have opened their home every election day for their neighbors to enjoy one of the cornerstones of independence - voting.

``Bill and the boys would move all the furniture out of the living room, and put in the voting booths because I always thought voting in the garage was a cold, impersonal thing,'' Terry said.

``These are friends and neighbors coming to vote, and they should be treated like company coming over to your house to fulfill one of this country's most important duties,'' she said.

Proudly, Terry will tell you that when all the election results were in, her Winnetka precinct always had one of the highest turnouts in the city.

She likes to think that voting in her living room, not the garage, had a little something to do with that.

``Years ago, we had a little lady from Greece living across the street,'' Terry said. ``She was so proud when she became a citizen.

``When she came to vote, she'd always salute the flag first, and bring a plate of something to eat for everyone to share. She was just so appreciative.

``I think, in many ways, she and a lot of my neighbors who have never missed a vote are what the Fourth of July is all about,'' Terry said.

``They understand just how fortunate we are to live in this country.''

Her sons are grown and gone now, and Bill and Terry are slowing down some, so, reluctantly, it's time to hand the voting booth privilege in her Winnetka neighborhood over to a young man living a few blocks away.

He's got a big garage, Terry sighs.

They were ``young and stupid,'' Penny Meyer says with a laugh - way back when she and her husband, Jeff, moved onto Katherine Avenue.

``We both loved the feel and sense of small-town America, so we thought an annual Fourth of July block party would be great,'' she said.

Thirty years later, it's become the cornerstone of this Van Nuys neighborhood lined with flags - shrinking its part of the Valley down to small-town America today. The same thing will happen today many times over, all across the Valley, block after block.

Most of the families on Katherine Avenue will start the day driving over to Sunland-Tujunga to ride their cruiser bikes down Foothill Boulevard in that town's parade.

Then they'll come back and fill up 1,000 water balloons for a 10-minute all-out water balloon fight before the egg toss and potluck dinner.

As one neighbor, John McLaughlin, put it, Jeff and Penny Meyer have spent the past 30 years bringing a sense of community to a neighborhood that probably wouldn't have one without them.

Some of the faces of the Fourth of July in the Valley.

A young immigrant woman teaching her kids that independence and freedom don't come cheap or easy.

A couple spending 32 years worth of election days moving the furniture out of their living room so they can treat the voters in their neighborhood like company when they come over to enjoy one of the cornerstones of independence.

And a former ``young and stupid'' couple who proved to be pretty smart by instilling pride and patriotism in their neighborhood - shrinking it down to small-town-America size on the Fourth of July.

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Luisa Mendoza, above, a Nicaraguan immigrant, says she wants son Joey and daughter Emma to understand how lucky they are to live in the United States. Van Nuys residents Jeff and Penny Meyer, far right in top photo, have played host to their Katherine Street neighbors at a July Fourth block party for about three decades.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) Terry Wessig has opened her Winnetka home as a polling place every Election Day for the past 32 years.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer