Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Closing my eyes, a lifetime of July 4th celebrations floods my memory. Sitting on a bridge over the Potomac with Garrick and Patrick watching the DC sky fill with patriotic honor. Standing on the rooftop of the skyscraper in Miami with Mikey and Patrick and the girls (by permission of the security guard who we busted up there with his girlfriend) watching fireworks directly in front of our very eyes on the other side of the 8ft glass wall. Another year standing with our little family so close to a brilliant Dallas fireworks show that we were choked from the sulphuric fumes and left with scraps of paper and pieces of cardboard in our hair from the exploded carton bodies of the bright jewels of light. The night as a teenager my roommate and I snuck out to go with my boyfriend and his friend to watch the display over Lake Placid and stayed, the four of us, lost in young adolescent passion in a little hotel room nearby. I think we got busted later though I don’t remember. Those few blessed and far too short years when Patrick would sit on my thrust out hip and ooh and ahh his delight at the magical sky above. The time when he was just four years old and we snuck into the half floor that was under construction on Biscayne Bay and ran from barren window to barren window catching a glimpse of dozens of pyrotechnics shows in every direction of the Miami night. All the glorious years wrapping up Charlotte’s Symphony in the Park, my favorite Charlotte tradition, with a night of music and celebration and fireworks.
Hot dogs and plastic silverware and patriotic tunes on the radio at friends’ houses and lake houses and amusement parks in years gone by. Fourth of July always had a bustle about it that I liked. An easy tradition of potato salad and summer celebration and social gatherings all ended with a magical display of light. I think of my friends and family and what they are doing back home as I look out over the Romanian hillside. I think of all the Americans flittering about in celebration and hope that in the midst of the celebration they take a moment to really ponder, to really appreciate the great blessing they were given the day they were born in our country.
Yes, I know, we have our problems. Taxes are too high, government can be corrupt, big business has too much power, the press is unreliable, people are self-interested. And all of these things can be said, to a greater or lesser degree, in every country I have thus far been to in the world. However, there are many things that cannot be said about those countries, that can be said about ours.
We can travel on a tourist visa to virtually any country in the world – no paperwork, no applications, no hassles, and, with few exceptions, no charge. Our country was built, much of it, on the labor of Polish workers in the turn of the century yet a Pole cannot fly to New York for holiday. An Italian can not quite his job and travel awhile with the knowledge he can return and readily find another job in his career field, nor can he open a business without connections or greasing a few palms along the way. The average middle income Bulgarian makes about 250 dollars a month, 250 dollars. True their living expenses are less – beer and cigarettes cost about a buck - but how do you ever leave your country’s borders if that is your income? You can barely get a hotel room in London for one night for $250. Wealthy people live in lovely appointed apartments in dilapidated buildings because there are no non-dilapidated buildings around and no single family homes to choose from. In even the nicer homes in these areas, the bathrooms are often so small you sit on the toilet to take a shower – really.
We in America have so much space, so much luxury, so much freedom, and so much opportunity – more than any single country in the world. We, you and I, drew the lucky card, the long stick, the winning lotto ticket the day we gasped our first breath in this country, our land of beautiful spacious skies and amber waves of grain, with its purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains. Today, as you eat your hot dogs and marvel at the fireworks and laugh with your friends take a moment to appreciate, really appreciate that you were born in this gracious land that stretches from sea to shining sea.
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