Independence Day

What better way to spend this, the day we celebrate our nation's independence, than standing on a sidewalk as the parade of American flags goes by?

Well, that would've been nice, but that wasn't what we did.

Instead, to soothe my frantic nerves (after too much overtime), we stayed home and worked on little projects around the house. Like cleaning the garage. Fixing sprinklers. Putting together another computer. Watching movies on YouTube. Stuff like that.

Got some exercise, too. Had a nice bike ride with James (to Target, to purchase another game for his DS with the money he earned) and an evening walk with Cheryl.

Our neighbors bore the burden of the celebration, bringing in truckloads of explosives to shoot up into the sky. We watched. For free. It's nice to watch people who were born in another country coming to this country and becoming successful, buying nice houses, raising nice families, becoming part of the community, and spending every July 4th blowing things up. In some countries, they use real explosives!

It was actually quieter this year than most of the other years. Even as midnight approaches, the noise level is rather subdued. Perhaps everyone found better ways to celebrate the founding of this new country. Perhaps they are all reading their copies of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. Perhaps they are all reading a book about the Revolutionary War, and remembering the hardships of that rag-tag band of rebels who gave up several years of hearth and home and harvest in order to become truly free.

Perhaps they're all busy reading up on the goings-on in the House and Senate (both State and Federal), and finding out what their local City and County Councils have been doing lately, so that their next opportunity to cast their vote will not be missed. Perhaps they're getting together with other citizens in grass-roots committees to figure out better ways to plan and organize their communities.

Let's hope they're not all falling alseep on the couch while Jay Leno and all the other late-night pseudo-celebrities tries to entertain people with crude humor and pointless (and boring) interviews with people who have gotten rich and famous for doing nothing more than standing in front of a camera reciting badly-written scripts. This is a wonderful country, but it sure can be baffling at times...