So, the thing is… it’s time for a party.
July 4th is coming. I did something I have never done before. I bought my girls red, white, and blue outfits to wear to the Independence Day parade. I had planned on getting the whole family matching t-shirts but my Internet connection went down just as I was about to buy them from Lands End. Maybe it was fate, since I can’t actually imagine my husband being seen in a shirt identical to mine.
I’m feeling pretty patriotic this year, given the reminder we had last September of how precious our way of life is to us. Isn’t it amazing to think that it hasn’t even been a year since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? I had to ask my husband, “Is this really just the first Independence Day we’ve had since September 11th?” It is, indeed.
I had a leisurely Sunday morning this week and had a chance to sit down and read the paper. I even went through the advertisements, looking for end-of-season sales on patio furniture and sunscreen and beach towels, since summer is just getting going here in Austin. I was struck by the ads –not just all the red, white, and blue, but the fact that so many stores advertised that they’d be open on July 4th.
It’s not a big thing but it struck me. Granted, I do NOT like to shop but I guess I thought that the celebration of Independence Day and recognition of the formation of our democratic system would merit a different kind of response this year. We just seem to have moved so far past the events of September 11. The wreckage is gone from where the World Trade Center twin towers collapsed. The New York Times has finished running profiles of the dead. Aside from a plethora of American Flag decals and t-shirts and band-aids, there is so little evidence of the most horrific event most of us can remember. We seem to have lost our rather exaggerated courtesy to each other that developed in the weeks after the attacks. (Well, this could just be me. I‘ve been a bit cranky lately.) We are a country still at war, with untold troops deployed and yet there are days when the war in Afghanistan doesn’t even get a mention on the nightly news. Our politicians, who showed remarkable solidarity in the aftermath of the tragedy, are now pointing fingers and trying to find a scapegoat. Does it really matter who knew what when? Isn’t the point that we none of us could foresee such a destructive and evil and purposeless act against civilians on our very soil? Will it change one child’s grief for a lost parent to know that someone might have overlooked a warning of something too malevolent to really imagine? And must each side sling arrows to make itself look better?
I don’t know. I just expected something else on this particular holiday –on the birthday of our country. I was hoping that Independence Day would be a true day of celebration this year, instead of just another shopping day. It’s such a great holiday! It crosses all religious and racial boundaries. Those of us who live in the United States of America and enjoy the blessings of this land get to put aside our differences and take one day to celebrate the birth of this nation. We can show that we remember; that we still care; that those people who died are mourned, and that we’ll never take our freedom for granted again.
Would it be an empty gesture if our country decided to take July 4th off? Maybe. But gosh, wouldn’t we all benefit from a day off? Think of it: a day to really reflect on our blessings of living in a country so magnificent, so diverse. We could dedicate the whole day to celebrating family and friends. We could cook out and loll about in our hammocks and read to our kids. Better still, we could take the opportunity to talk to our children about how blessed we are to live in this country. Yes, the United States has plenty of problems. It’s still the best thing going. After all, we could be living in a country ravaged by war, or famine, or unchecked political corruption. Or we could live in a country where the ability to read is still far out of reach of the common citizen, or where rights are allocated depending on socio-economic status. We’re so LUCKY, we Americans. I am so grateful that my girls will have every opportunity to achieve their potential, simply by virtue of having been born in this country. People are always saying the American dream is no longer a reality but the Lance Armstrongs of this world keep proving them wrong.
Anyway, wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a day devoted to stillness? I don’t know about you but it seems that I use any free day (read: a day where someone else will share in watching my kids) to run errands and finish projects. I think it would be remarkably restful to have a day where we were all forced to just STAY HOME. A day that we couldn’t use to rush around frantically. Of course, we’d have to think ahead about needing stuff like lighter fluid and hamburger buns, but I think we’re up to it.
I think one day isn’t too much to ask –not only to remember the innocent civilians who died last year but also to celebrate those people in our history who believed so fervently in this country that they sacrificed everything for it. We should celebrate the convictions of those who founded this country; we should celebrate our differences of opinion and the fact that we get to express them. We should celebrate the goodness of our lives. We could all read the Declaration of Independence. I read it just now and got goose bumps at the passion of it. I’d forgotten how beautiful the language is. Go on, take a few minutes a read it –I’ll paste an abridged version at the bottom of this column.
Of course, there are some people who CAN’T take the day off –like doctors and nurses and firefighters and the police. Maybe we could dedicate part of the day to acknowledging these unsung heroes. After all, the September tragedies showed us just what we owe them. We could take them a “smackeral of something,” as Pooh says. (My brother is a firefighter in the Dallas area. He always works on holidays because his children are grown and he likes to give the young families of his colleagues a chance to be together. He also really likes blueberry pie. Just in case you’re in the neighborhood…)
I know there are a lot of people for whom a day off represents a financial hardship and there are commissioned retail salespeople who will suffer if we all stay home on July 4th. But what if we promise to make it up on the very next day? I bet most people are going to take Friday off to make it a long weekend, right? So, we’ll pump all kinds of money into the economy on Friday. But on Thursday, we’ll take the opportunity to celebrate freedom.
I’m taking my kids to a neighborhood parade and there, with all my neighbors and friends, I’m going to sing America the Beautiful and wave a flag and then we’re going back to the house for a cookout. And I’m going to think about how blessed I am to live in this country, in freedom and without fear; surrounded by the people I love most. I wish everyone could be so lucky.
When the Declaration of Independence was declared, John Adams wrote this letter to his wife: “I am apt to believe that this day will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
Sounds like a heck of a reason to take a day off.
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Barbara Cooper 2002
Barbara
Cooper is the mother of Ana (4) and Jane (20 months).
She lives in Austin, Texas and can sing the preamble to the constitution.
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The
unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America
it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE
hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the
Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles,
and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of
Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to
throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries
and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States.
WE,
therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATED OF AMERICA, in GENERAL
CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the
Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good
People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United
Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they
are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be
totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power
to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do
all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our
sacred Honor.