Tag Fourth of July

Happy Summer

Michael 10 Comments

Happy July everybody! We’re heading into our first full month of summer, and it’s hot hot hot, and on fire with summer fun celebrations! I’d like to take the time revisit and few topics I previously revisit on a variety of Fourths of July. I hope you’ll take the time to read or reread them and if you do, that you enjoy reading or rereading them as much as I did when I wrote or rewrote them.  

Up north it’s Canada Day today. South of most of the Great Lakes in will be Independence Day on Thursday. Neither day is exactly when new countries were constituted and truly became independent. Nor did that happen in France on July 14. But they are all momentous dates in the formation of countries we still recognize and celebrate today. Throughout the world, 21 other countries took their first steps to freedom and self-control in various Julys. I wrote more on those eventful events in 2017. You can check it out here.

Here in my neck of the woods we do fireworks in a big way. But we seem to be slacking off on parades. Fireworks are nice but parades, especially the marching bands, get my heart pumping. I think it’s because to me, bands are microcosms of America. I felt that way strongly enough that naturally I wrote about it. In fact, I’ve felt so strongly that I have repeated the same post a few times. The most recent was just last year and you can find that here.

On the Fourth of July 2022 we were pretty comfortably making that return to “normal” that we knew we’d get to eventually. That day I re-visited a post I wrote in July 2020 when we were just starting to find our way out of lockdowns and venturing back out on summer vacations, but not by air or by sea, but by land. That reminded me of my childhood vacations, always by car, and someone always stuck in the middle of the back seat, suffering from Middle Seat Hump Syndrome.

I hope sometime this month, wherever you are you can celebrate, travel, ooh and aah at the pyrotechnics, or march on to your personal independence. And between all that, I hope you have some time to read, or reread these older summer offerings from me.

Happy July everybody!

Who we are depends on many external factors, but what we are is all us. We look at how we tell ourselves what we want to be as we live life in the latest Uplift!

Happy Birthday America!

 

Rockets Loud Blare

Michael 9 Comments

Sunday afternoon I was having dinner with my daughter and her dog. Nature was putting on a fireworks display that rivaled what man made for the Fourth of July. The dog didn’t seem to mind the booming thunder. He would stop, tilt his head to one side, and lift an ear but then go right back to trying to get all the frozen fruit out of his treat. According to the daughter, he was not so calm with the artificial noise makers the previous week. Those he didn’t trust quite as much as these that he must have sensed were part of the natural scheme of things. I can’t say I blame him. If I could invent a firecracker that had the beauty of the modern displays without all that blasted noise, or noisy blasts, I may not end up a millionaire, but I’d like it a lot more.

That got us to talking about fireworks and the best backyards of the ones we collectively have had to be able to see the downtown display and from there, somehow, into stories about about hospitals. No it wasn’t a natural progression but most of our conversations follow no natural progression and we are quite proud of that. Or at least we tolerate it.

It happens to be that ten years ago, the Fourth of July 2013, was the last Fourth that I was out actually somewhere with the intent to see a fireworks display. Two days later, I had the first of the many major surgeries that changed my life forever. I don’t think that’s why I haven’t been out to see fireworks since, content to watch them from the relative comfort of a backyard deck chair, but that’s the sequence of events. Proof again that just because B follows A, A does not necessarily cause B. Anyway, that’s how we got from thunder to fireworks to hospitals and hospital stays. Somehow, I managed to have a story that wraps that all together, with a nice ribbon, and a big bow in top. Of course I do.

It was New Years Eve, I don’t recall what year and I don’t recall why I was there, but some year in the not too distant past, after 2013 but before 2023, I was admitted to a just barely suburban hospital. I say just barely suburban because on a good day, you can walk from the hospitals front door to the city boundary. Anyway…on this particular day, I walked no where except to the emergency room and there just from the parking lot or maybe from my doctor’s office located in the medical office building next door to the hospital, and to make a long story short (I know…too late), I was admitted for some reason or other. I was wheeled up to the room, looked out the window and had an unobstructed view of downtown. (I should mention that the hospital sits on a hill so I was also looking down into downtown.) (Quite appropriate, don’t you think?) (And now, back to our show.)

Later that evening, just after dusk, my visitors and I were treated to a front row seat to the first set of fireworks. (Yes, first set. At the time (I don’t know if they still do) the city sponsored two New Years Eve fireworks displays, the first dubbed “the family show” just after dusk, and the second, at midnight just as the countdown reached zero.) Later that evening I stayed up to watch the midnight fireworks too and then settled in for the night.

As I said, I don’t remember why I was there but it had nothing to do with my heart. I know that because the following morning, New Years Day, a nurse came in and asked why I was there, that was the cardiac floor and I didn’t seem to have any heart problems. I agreed I didn’t, and that all the work that had been down to me up till then was in the general area below the belt. I was transferred to the general surgery unit and never again saw the downtown fireworks so clearly as that night. Nor so quietly either.

Taking charge of your emotions is a good thing to do. Taking charge in moderation might be the best way you can do it. We explain why we think so in the latest Uplift! (Reading time 3 minutes)

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Making Beautiful Music Together – Revisited

Michael 5 Comments

While I was pondering what to post on a day that falls between the second of July (lower case “s” and the Fourth of July (upper case “F,” aka Independence Day), I found that recently I had definitely overplayed the not as entertaining as it used to be “weekend holiday sales theme,” the self-righteous “everybody is wrong about what this holiday means” theme, the angry “why do people keep referencing their [fill your favorite amendment] and what they authors of [that favorite amendment] meant when nobody alive now was around when [said aforementioned amendment] was passed” theme.

What was I to do? I went back and checked on some of the previous Fourth of July aka Independence Day posts and found one that I really like, and it wasn’t even sarcastic or flippant. So I’m reposting that here and then I’ll be back at the end to tell you what I think about it today. (This post isn’t that old and some of you might actually remember it.)

For some reason I was thinking of a time ago when my daughter was a teenager filling her after school day hours with after school activities. Two of those activities, or one with two arms perhaps, were concert band and marching band when she played flute and piccolo respectively. The thing about those particular winds is that, except for perhaps in the fingers of Ian Anderson, they rarely play much that by themselves would be recognizable as music. While she would practice, I couldn’t be sure she was playing the right notes but during the performances, with the other winds, strings, and percussion, all the individual pieces came together to form true music. Every now and then an instrument might be featured in a solo, but for far longer the group played ensemble to make the really good stuff.

In a sappy poetic way, America is like those bands. Alone, we don’t sound like much. We’re single instruments playing random notes that make little sense alone. If you put all the piccolos together, they still don’t make much musical sense, only now they make it louder. Likewise, groups of like-thinking individuals spouting the same lines make little sense even when making a lot of noise. No, it’s not the number of people that make the country, it’s the variety. It might not work for other countries and that’s fine, but for America to work, there must be different voices, playing different parts of the same song.

Lately too many of us have been closing our ears to the other instruments that make up the American band. We’re content hearing only our own part, or worse, playing only solos. Then we question why others aren’t thinking the same thing. Oddly, the others are wondering likewise, everybody convinced their part is the main part, that their idea is the right idea. Why won’t everybody think alike? It really isn’t a matter of why everybody won’t think or say or do the same things. It’s because we can’t. We can’t think the same things because we don’t have the same backgrounds to formulate those thoughts. No matter how hard a piccolo tries, it cannot reach the same notes as a tuba.

You can only listen to a tuba solo – or piccolo or sax or marimba – for so long before you get up and walk out on the concert. The strength of the band, the beauty of the music, is not in the instrument. It is in the players who know when to play their notes, trusting that by allowing the other musicians to play their own notes, they will make beautiful music together.

This Independence Day, take a moment to think about how our differences are what makes us unique as a country. Yes, celebrate those differences, but celebrate the whole also. The music sounds best when all the instruments are playing together. Celebrate this Independence Day and enjoy our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of really good harmony.

We’re quite thankful for the freedoms we have and for those who continue to work to keep them for us.  I was one of those some years ago doing just that.  So maybe that’s why when I talk about what freedom means, or how I’d like to envision an harmonious country, I’m willing to take a few liberties with our liberties.  Be as rebellious as you want, but be mindful that freedom doesn’t come easy.  Nor does it come by the actions of one person, one group, or one party.

Go ahead and selfishly enjoy your freedom tomorrow. Wednesday, get back to the work of playing your part to see that next year you can again celebrate with those you don’t see eye to eye with, but you couldn‘t be an American without.

“Love begins with listening,” says Fred Rogers. In the latest Uplift! we say why we think that listening is an essential way of saying I love you, and might be the greatest gift we can give to somebody. (Approximate reading time = 3 minutes)

Happy Birthday America!

Revisiting the Middle Seat

Michael 4 Comments

Back in July of 2020, July 9 to be exact, I published “The Middle Seat Hump Syndrome,” a clever little ditty if I say so myself wherein I compared the then fairly new encounter with the coronavirus, which we don’t even call it that any more. Toward the end of an honest to gosh true tale of summer family vacationing, I said with much assurance that we will all be fine in the long run. Guess what? I was right! Politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, centrists all aside, I was right! We are pretty much okay as long as you don’t ask the 6.35 million people who lost their lives. Yes that number could have been smaller had we paid less attention to the politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, but we’re stupid so we didn’t. Maybe next time we will.

Because today is the Fourth of July, which of course everybody knows is officially American Independence Day, and because the entire country is out there burning gas we don’t have to pursue their right to a family vacation, I thought I’d regale you again, with “The Middle Seat Hump Sydrome,” with that pesky typo corrected even!

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You need to be of a certain age to remember summer vacations in the family car with enough family that it filled all the seats, three across, and the middle seat made the leg room in coach on Delta look generous for there, right where your feet wanted to be, was “the hump,” the growth in the floorboard that rose nearly to seat level, to allow whatever it was that transferred the up and downs of the engine to the round and round of the rear wheels to make it’s way from the motor to the where the rubber met the road. I am of that age and had been on those vacations and I got that middle seat.

It wasn’t always like that. For a while there were just two of us in the back and we would each get out own window seats with plenty of room between for the picnic basket and cooler that were only opened at planned stops along the way. Then the third one came along. At first it wasn’t such a big deal. She started out in the baby seat in the middle of the front seat (yes, that’s where we put them when we used them back then). After she outgrew that space, she shifted to the back but because those short, stubby legs didn’t even make it off the seat, the hump was not impediment to her comfort. Eventually though, she grew and with that, so did the complaining. “I don’t want to sit on the hump!” And the word came from the front, “take turns.” From then on, whenever the car stopped, the back seat crowd reshuffled, and everyone got a turn being uncomfortable where we decidedly didn’t want to be.

That’s a little like what’s going on in the world now. Each time it appears to be stopping, or at least slowing enough to risk opening the door and get off this crazy ride, the virus comes back, and we have to reshuffle. Do we limit contact, should we close down again, does this mask make my nose look big? Regardless of the answer, some bodies are going to end up decidedly where they don’t want to be doing what they’d rather not be doing or not doing what they’d rather do. Think of the world as an early ’64 Chevrolet and were all taking turns sitting on the hump.

I’m going to spoil the ending for you. It all works out. Nobody was permanently damaged from sitting with a leg there and the other one there. We climbed out of the backseat a little stiff and a little sore but we made. We’ll make it through this also. Maybe a little worse for the wear after this ride that you are certain we got lost on because no way it should be taking this long, but eventually we are going to climb back out into the world.

Middle seat hump syndrome was never that horrible and may have been the inspiration for some future engineer to design SUVs with higher cabins that clear all those mechanical doodads or to shift the driving wheels to the front and obviate the need for a hump running down the middle if the cars interior. Along those same lines it could be someday we might even get to go out and not have to check that we have our masks with us. We just have to wait for the right expert to come up with the right solution. They are out there. There will find it.

In the meanwhile, Happy Motoring!

roamcare_logo-3If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs, check out the Moments of Motivation, or just wander around the site. Everybody is always welcome.

Making Beautiful Music Together

Michael 2 Comments

For some reason I was thinking of a time ago when my daughter was a teenager filling her after school day hours with after school activities. Two of those activities, or one with two arms perhaps, were concert band and marching band when she played flute and piccolo respectively. The thing about those particular winds is that, except for perhaps in the fingers of Ian Anderson, they rarely play much that by themselves would be recognizable as good music. While she would practice, I couldn’t be sure she was playing the right notes but during the performances, with the other winds, strings, and percussion, all the individual pieces came together to form true music. Every now and then an instrument might be featured in a solo but for far longer the group played ensemble to make the really good stuff.

In a sappy poetic way, America is like those bands. Alone, we don’t sound like much. We’re single instruments playing random notes that make little sense alone. If you put all the piccolos together, they still don’t make much musical sense, only now they make little sense louder. Likewise, groups of like-thinking individuals spouting the same lines make little sense even when making a lot of noise. No, it’s not the number of people that make the country, it’s the variety. It might not work for other countries and that’s fine, but for America to work, there have to be different voices, playing different parts of the same song.

Lately too many of us have been closing our ears to the other instruments that make up the American band. We’re content hearing only our own part, or worse, playing only solos. Then we question why others are thinking the same thing. Oddly, the others are wondering likewise, everybody convinced their part is the main part, that their idea is the right idea. Why won’t everybody think alike? It really isn’t a matter of why everybody won’t think or say or do the same things. It’s because we can’t. We can’t think the same things because we don’t have the same backgrounds to formulate those thoughts. No matter how hard a piccolo tries, it cannot reach the same notes as a tuba.

You can only listen to a tuba solo – or piccolo or sax or marimba – for so long before you get up and walk out on the concert. The strength of the band, the beauty of the music, is not in the instrument. It is in the players who know when to play their notes, trusting that by allowing the other musicians to play their own notes, they will make beautiful music together.

This Independence Day, take a moment to think about how our differences are what makes us unique as a country. Yes, celebrate those differences, but celebrate the whole also. The music sounds best when all the instruments are playing together. Celebrate this Independence Day and enjoy our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of really good harmony.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy American Day

Michael Leave a comment
Happy Fourth of July! I say that as opposed to Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans because although I am certain that today is July 4 I’m not sure if we weren’t supposed to celebrate our independence yesterday, thus insuring the federal employees their well deserved three day weekend, because what good is getting a holiday off if it is a scheduled day off anyway. And as everybody knows even though Congress decided to send King George our intent to be so on this day in 1776, we really didn’t become independent from the Crown until October 19, 1781.
 
So…Happy Something! Happy Saturday if nothing else. I don’t normally post on Saturdays, in fact I think it was more than 8 years ago that I last did this but these are not normal times. This is a particularly not normal American Independence Day weekend with so many Americans taking their freedom to task as opposed to taking it for granted which would make this a particularly normal American Independence Day weekend.
 
continentalflagI can’t say with certainty so somebody please correct me if I misspeak but I feel certain that America is the only nation that qualifies its citizens. We claim we want to be equal. We protest for equality. We write letters and poorly articulated social mode posts demanding equality. And then we differentiate. We have African Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Americans, Mexican Americans. Other ethnic groups celebrate being German, Irish, or Polish American. Yet it’s only a small portion of Americans who ever lived anywhere other than America. I guess they would be American Americans. A friend of mine emigrated from Vietnam to Canada before immigrating to the U.S.. Does that make her Asian American or Canadian American? Was she an Asian Canadian before. Are there African Canadians or Scandinavian Canadians? What goes on in the rest of the world? As the son of Italian Americans here, if I relocate to my homeland in the mountains facing the Adriatic would I be an American Italian there?
 
I have a hunch the labels are mostly assigned by those outside the ethnicities to track how well they (the assigners) do something in their mind “special” for one of the assigned. Not ever having been assigned (European American is not an option) I can’t say if they (the assigned) really care much. Maybe it’s more important to be treated respectfully than being called by the “proper” term and still treated like an object to be used for effect.
 
There have been a multitude of posts on social media declaring “This Fourth of July act like an American!” It’s not a horrible idea you know. For all its faults and flaws America, actually Americans do a credible job living up to the standards envisioned 250 years ago. (Yeah, yeah, it’s only been 244. Actually its only been 239 (1781, remember) but it took a few years even back then to get up to speed.) When nobody is watching we typically do the right things. We mostly honor our families, we support the local businesses, we get out to help our neighbors who might have trouble shopping or cleaning or are just lonely. And most of us mostly do that for most anybody without checking IDs or birth certificates. Acting like an American is pretty much like acting human, like the rest of the world. So I too will say, this Fourth of July act like an American! But might I humbly suggest we act that way the other days of the year too.
 
Happy First Saturday of July!
 
 
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Happy Independence Day

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Fourth of July. Interestingly nobody seems to call it Independence Day any longer. That’s because we are mostly a confused group of people. That’s we from the USA. you other we people (as opposed to wee people which would probably have somebody somewhere in the Good Ole U. S. of A. organizing a protest) might or might not but that’s not for me to question because even if you have your own freedom of speech, well that’s yours, not mine.

Anyway, what ever happened to Independence Day? I even conducted my own experiment and earlier this week asked 4 people “Do you have any plans for Independence Day?” I got 2 “What? Oh, do you mean the Fourth of July?” one “Wasn’t that last  month?” and one “What I do every weekend,” which was actually confusing since the holiday is not on a weekend day making me wonder if the respondent did not know what Independence Day is, did not know when Independence Day is, or is planning on a four day weekend because by gosh by golly if the holiday is on a Thursday then it is truly and justly our God given American right to make it a four f-ing day holiday! I will be the first to admit that is a small sample size (unless you already brought that up to yourself while you were reading those preceding sentences so then I’ll be the second to admit it) but it’s clear (to me at least) that 50% of the country is confused (see, I told you), 25% is clueless, and 25% is out for him or herself at all costs.

A quick check of the local paper confirms this. In the last couple weeks there have been 2 separate instances of people pressuring a charitable organization from presenting the fundraiser “Drag Queen Bingo” and a non profit, privately held library from holding a “Drag Queen Story Hour,” reading program in the children’s section. These are the confused people. They are confused because the same people who had been quoted in the articles as saying (I’m paraphrasing here) we can’t expose our children to such aberrations were expressing love and acceptance of all people at the opening of the “Pride Parade” four weeks earlier. Agree or disagree. It confuses people when you do both.

A suburban community Fourth of July parade is being protested by a group organized by a local man to “shed light on the District Attorney’s failure to represent certain victims of violent crimes.” The organizer of the protest has just been released from prison where he served a 4-10 year sentence for aggravated assault, a violent crime. I would say he and his followers are on the clueless end of the “what’s wrong with this picture” spectrum.

For this year’s example of one out for one’s self we must turn to the national news. I was unaware that the colonial flag was symbolic of slavery and racism but then I wasn’t around 243 years ago so I can’t say for sure what they were thinking when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. Oh wait, nobody alive today was there either, not even a badly coiffed ex-football player.

Happy Birthday America. I’d suggest a stiff drink with the cake and fireworks.

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Happy Birthday America!

Michael Leave a comment

Hey, if people can have Christmas in July, I can celebrate the Fourth of July in January. Particularly since it belongs here. Now.

January 14, 1784, the United States of America was established as a sovereign power. It was then the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the war with Great Britain. Officially today is known as Ratification Day. It’s probably celebrated as little as it is because so few Americans understand the concept of, or quite possibly even the word, ratification. If you’re not sure, don’t look it up in an on line dictionary. There you will find “the act of ratifying.” Useful, no? How about “the action of giving formal consent to a treaty, contract, or agreement, making it officially valid.” Better!

continentalflagWhat happened on July 4, 1776 was like America standing in the middle of the school yard shouting “I am the greatest!” What happened seven and a half years later was everybody else agreeing with them. (Us?) Sort of.

Seven and a half years is a long time for peace to be recognized. That because it wasn’t. Just because the U.S. declared itself independent in 1776 nobody was going to just take their word for it. (Our word?) King George wasn’t convinced and he kept sending troops to North America to convince them. (Us?) It wasn’t until September 1783 that peace was negotiated between the colonies and the crown, officially ending the American Revolution and recognizing the United States of America as an independent country. The treaty was negotiated in Paris and required the ratification of at least nine of thirteen states, a two-thirds majority, when Congress next met in January. Representatives from nine states attended and unanimously approved the treaty, ending the war and constituting the nation.

The proclamation went:

By the United States in Congress assembled, a proclamation: Whereas definitive articles of peace and friendship, between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty, were concluded and signed at Paris, on the 3rd day of September 1783 … we have thought proper by these presents, to notify the premises to all the good citizens of these United States …
Given under the seal of the United States, witness His Excellency Thomas Mifflin, our president, at Annapolis, this fourteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four.

Wait, wait! Who is this Thomas Mifflin guy and why are they calling him president instead of George Washington. Thomas Mifflin was President of the Continental Congress, just like John Hancock was eight years earlier when Congress was working on that declaration thingy. George wasn’t elected president of the country until some five years later that year when the constitution was ratified calling call for a president of the country to preside over it. (Apologies to on-line dictionaries everywhere.). That’s a post for a different day.

But for today…happy birthday America! Now, who has the cake?

 

 

 

Happy [fill in the blank] Independence Day

Michael 3 Comments

Boy: Grandpa, did they have the fourth of July in Italy when you were growing up?

Old Man: Yes. In fact, they did. They have the fourth of July everywhere!

Ok, it’s an old joke. But actually, they do have a fourth of July, or more accurately a Fourth of July, or most accurately an Independence Day everywhere. No matter where Flagyou are reading this, sometime in the past, sometimes a quite distant past where you are isn’t what it used to be. Every nation on Earth at some time wasn’t. And a surprising number of when they became what they are happened in July.

There is our American Independence Day tomorrow on that at least here famous Fourth of July, commemorating when we told the English Crown that we would rather suffer through a couple hundred years of taxation with poor representation than another day of it without any representation.  The actual independence came five years, three months, and 15 days later when the British forces officially surrendered. All those Americans reading this, you knew that, right?

A couple of days ago, July 1 actually, our neighbors to the north celebrated Canada Day.When I was going to school it was known as Dominion Day (and probably was to a lot of Canadians back then also) and we were told it was the Canadian IndependenceFlags Day. What did we know? We’re Americans. I later learned that it actually commemorated the combining of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario into the Dominion of Canada, presenting a stronger unified border against the United States just in case the politicos in Washington having just reunited the states after the American Civil War might have designs on taking those Canadian provinces for their own. Our own. Somebody’s own. I found that out when the British Parliament declared Canada to be an independent nation 115 years later.

Another thing I learned in my American schooling was that July 14 was France’s Independence Day on what we were told they call Bastille Day. And in fact July 14 does commemorate the storming of the Bastille and the uniting of the French people against the monarchy in 1789. The French Republic was actually established on September 22, 1792 which like our October 19, 1781 doesn’t seem to be celebrated. Now you could say that all that isn’t really independence as much as a changing of the guard. For the real French Independence you have to go back to 481, give or take a couple of years, when the Kingdom of the Franks was founded by Clovis I with land taken from the Roman Empire.

WorldWhatever misconceptions I had of these days they were still momentous days in the formation of what nations share our terrestrial home today. But there are a lot more nations celebrating freedom this month. Twenty-one other nations from Algeria to Venezuela. (I was hoping when I did my research that I find Zimbabwe gained their independence from Great Britain in July but alas, it was actually on April 18.  But it would have made such a great sentence!)

So wherever you are, chances are pretty good that you or a nearby neighbor is celebrating something this month that made somewhere literally somewhere.

Happy Blank of July!

 

Rockets Glaring Red

Michael Leave a comment

It would be too easy to write up a quick post on the Fourth of July and what it means to us.  Instead, here’s a quick post on what it could have meant to us.  Actually there were two big holidays this year that fall into this “could have been” category:  Independence Day and yes, Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day is a big deal around here, “here” being the very tight confines of our residences and work places and mostly only when we are there.  Somebody has to keep up a tradition.  Type “Groundhog Day” into our search box and see how many posts will pop up.  It’s so special that it’s the only topic that hosts our only post of a photograph.

What made it very special this year is that it fell on a weekend.  Legitimately that could have meant a trip to the rascal’s lair so we could have seen for ourselves how this ball of fur became the world’s greatest meteorologist.  True, you need a good 3 or 4 year advance plan to get a hotel room but a slightly worn, rented RV could have done the job.   But He’s health just wasn’t going to cooperate and it was a plan better not even brought up.

And now, it the same year, the Fourth of July sits on Friday just begging to be the start of a terrific three day weekend.  Where we live is a pretty good place for fireworks.  Some of the best are put on several times a year within a handful of miles from either of our houses.   But it is the Fourth of July.  No matter how good the ones in our own backyards may be, doesn’t the thought of seeing the display at our nation’s birthplace in Philadelphia or exploding over the same Fort McHenry that Francis Scott Key kept in sight before writing the words for the Star Spangled Banner make you want to check hotel reservations (or RV rental agreements)?  But again, no good cooperation from that package of skin and bones that he keeps dragging around every day.

Strangely, the two holidays aren’t that dissimilar.  It’s because of the actions taken on the Fourth of July some 238 years ago that we can make fools of ourselves on the Second of February.  The cynic in all of us is going to raise its ugly head and ask if that’s the only thing we can relate freedom to, some silly fur-lined frenzy.  Actually, no, it’s not.

We’re quite thankful for the freedoms we have and for those who continue to work to keep them for us.  In fact, He was one of those for some years some years ago doing just that.  So maybe that’s why when we talk about what freedom means to us we’re willing to take a few liberties with our liberties.  Be as serious as you want this weekend and be mindful that freedom doesn’t come easy.  Be as thankful as you can be for those who aren’t going to get to see the artificial displays that we’ll Ooh and Ahh over. But if you really want to thank those who are doing the hard work so you can enjoy the rockets’ multicolor displays, do something special with it.

Maybe make plans to go visit your favorite rodent or your favorite spot on the beach.  And go ahead and selfishly enjoy them.  That’s what they are there for.  The ones making sure they are won’t mind.

We think that because of the cycle of leap years between now and then that Groundhog Day and Independence Day will both be on weekends again in a mere five years.  Maybe if we start planning now…  Hmm.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?