Celebrating Our Independence

The fourth of July is generally a time mostly known for great sales at department stores, flags everywhere and huge barbecues. Oh yeah, and fireworks. It's always impressive to me that we constantly preach peace but in honor of our country's independence we explode small rockets and bombs. I find it really amusing. I've only begun enjoying fireworks in the last few years. When I was little, I hated fireworks, and my hearing is still pretty sensitive but not to that point anymore. Guess it's true that each decade you lose a good amount of hearing. But I can appreciate that there is some artistic merit in really grand displays of fireworks. Mainly when I think about them, I imagine my brother and his friends when they were younger lighting bottle rockets and running backwards.

The ones in New York are not quite as huge as the Boston fireworks, but there is definitely a lot of thought put into them. Various shapes and sizes exploded into the air, including planets, smiley faces and geometric shapes. I told B and C that I thought what would really be brilliant was if someone could coordinate Bloomberg's face entirely in fireworks. That would be entertainment.

We were super duper American yesterday. C baked this AMAZING made from scratch apple pie, we had sandwiches, potato salad, I provided chips and salsa (because arguably almost everyone enjoys and can eat this dish) and we had american soda. Brilliant move to take a picnic out to Gantry State Park and prep ourselves for the display. There were a ton of kids out there (many already dressed in their pj's) and even more people. We all oohed and aahed at the same time, which in itself would be impressive.

I wonder if this year's fireworks display meant any more than other years. Mainly because we are in war, and because this is not what our forefathers envisioned for this country (at least I hope it's not). Maybe every war is meant to be "the war that ends all wars". i liked Judi Dench's line in "Mrs. Henderson Presents", when she says, "I know because my son died in war that he truly died in vain". Why? Because there will always be more wars. There i snothing heroic in sending headstrong, irrational eighteen year old boys into a battlefield. Surely you remember how you were at eighteen? BElieving that immortality was yours, believing that nothing could change you, alter you, much less kill you. When I walked past the quaker church on Saturday I was surprised to find that they had ribbons for everyone who has given their life in Iraq- so far the number hovers around 2300. Looking at the tags, that included ages, there were very few people over the age of 25. That is frightening. That we are killing the best part of ourselves. And then celebrating with explosions.