122. The Fourth of July, 2017
Today is the fourth of July, one of my favorite (and more reflective) days of the year.
When I was young the 4th used to mean fireworks: blowing up tin cans, tossing “cherry bombs” into the creek to watch the geysers that followed, launching marbles from pipes with M-80’s at their base — home-made mortars that could send a “cats eye” marble through a barn wall. (We were both dumb and lucky.)
As I grew older, and perhaps a smidgeon wiser, the Fourth began to connote our country. I felt pride in our civil rights struggle, dismay at the Vietnam War. Still later, as I began to read history — especially histories of our revolution and the people who braved it — I became more aware that countries don’t just happen. That I am, that we all are, part of a still-noble human experiment, launched by extraordinarily wise, brave and flawed people. An experiment that has brought us freedoms and achievements and growth.
We continue, 241 years later, on our quest for a “more perfect union”. We are most surely not the country we were in 1776. I do not regret that. Time moves on; lessons are learned; players change. New generations make new contributions.
We tipped the balance in World Wars I and II, saving both our freedom and human dignity.
We landed our countrymen on the moon, cured polio, eradicated small pox.
We still struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery, but we do struggle with it — and we are making progress.
We have slowly opened our democracy/society to women, to blacks, to gays. And while occasionally we retreat from the path of inclusion, it is our trajectory nonetheless.
We have a system of higher education that is clearly the best in the world — and is perhaps our most successful export (after Coke and Apple).
Our record is not perfect, but it is on the whole positive and recognized world-round as exemplary in its aspirations if not always in its instantiation.
So, I celebrate this Fourth of July with you, not by lighting a fuse, or waving a flag, but by recalling John Adam’s words to Abigail upon the signing of our Declaration of Independence:
It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
Incidentally, Adams thought July 2nd, not the 4th, should be marked as the occasion of our independence. Why? Because it was on that date in 1776 that our Second Continental Congress actually voted to approve our separation from England.
You know that Benjamin Franklin had reservations about the Bald Eagle serving as our national bird/symbol. He wrote to his daughter in 1784:
“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish … the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him….
Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country… [Isn’t that a nice pun?]
…. the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”
There is no question that Franklin was right in his moral assessment of the Eagle, (My resident eagle is at the moment scavenging a baby seal whose carcass washed up on our beach several days ago.), but I am partial to it, regardless.
I share these photos with you of my Eagle perched not 20 yards from the desk upon which I type looking out into the fog. Somehow, this seems an apt metaphor for where our country is at the moment. Waiting to see what will emerge, somewhat befuddled, a little bit self-conscious, perhaps a bit anxious with regard to what the fog-of-future holds.
PS. Later in the afternoon I had four eagles down on the south beach. Looked a lot like lunch in a middle school cafeteria. Not much left of the seal pup.
