Independence Day

We all celebrate or birthdays every year. Well, many of us do. Some rebel against them and only grudgingly yield to the pressure to mark the day at all.

The United States celebrates its birthday on July 4, a day usually populated by fireworks, picnics, and general summer merriment. As a kid, I remember the Fourth of July as THE major highlight of the summer. We usually did a cookout at my grandparents' place and the watched the local fireworks display--just a few blocks away and from their back yard. On a few occasions, I was permitted/encouraged to go expend some of my youthful restfulness at the mini-carnaval at the high school.

Years go by, and some traditions fall away. Our annual fireworks watch did. Eventually the fireworks display itself moved over a mile away, so we couldn't even see most of them from the back yard any more.

So what does the Fourth of July mean to me now? I still enjoy watching fireworks; this year and last we enjoyed them from the porch of our B&B in New Jersey (see previous post). Our family only occasionally does the gathering. And that's okay; we see each other pretty regularly anyway.

I know people connect to Independence Day in many different ways--some as I mentioned above, some with strains of Lee Greenwood or Toby Keith. These days I tend to get history-minded. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I was in a production of 1776 a while back. (I played Witherspoon from NJ.) I find myself thinking about what it must have been like to be in that time of great turmoil. How frightening to be willing to forsake the only national identity one had ever known--a subject of the greatest empire on the globe. To turn toward what? Apparently the founders had no real idea what this new nation they were birthing would be. The First and Second Continental Congress seemed to give very little hope for any kind of unity. Delegates from, say, Connecticut and South Carolina seemed to have more in common with their English cousins than with each other. They were very much foreigners to one another. And they had serious disagreements on such issues as the scope of centralized government and the institution of slavery.

It's rather amazing that they were able to put their differences aside, at least long enough to achieve their common goal. The issue of the power of the federal government saw an ill-conceived outcome in the Articles of Confederation before finally being settled in 1787. And of course, the issue of slavery--and, yes, of states' rights--came to a tragic head less than a century later. But still, those brave, forward-thinking men were able to achieve their goal, a new nation founded in freedom and self-government.

There have certainly been some bumps along the way. But I'd say the Great Experiment has worked.