Thoughts about the 4th of July
I spent the 4th of July this year with my wife and friends in Denver. My wife, Linda, and I had attended the Cherry Creek Arts Festival during the day, which has become a part of our routine for the last four or five years, and were invited by our good friends, Janna and Alby Scudiere from Morgantown, to spend the evening with them, their daughter and son-in-law at a barbeque in a Denver suburb. We had the usual fare of hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, barbeque and watched the fireworks shot off at a nearby country club. It was a wonderful night.
Being there and reflecting on the 4th of July has taken me back to the time that I was a small boy. I’ve always loved the holiday because it was a time when I was a child that my mom and dad, brothers, sisters, grandparents, cousins, nieces and nephews would all get together for a family picnic. The picnics were either at Kanawha State Forrest or Coonskin Park in Charleston, W.Va.
It seems that, back then, more families chose to attend outdoor picnics than today. At any rate, it was great fun. We would arrive at the picnic site around 10 a.m., build our own little fire to cook the hot dogs, have the old fashioned grills fired up for the hamburgers, and have plenty of soft drinks for the kids and beer for the adults. Everybody participated in all of the games that we played, including softball, badminton, croquet and the like. We normally wouldn’t leave the picnic grounds until the park closed.
Those memories were great and I have happy memories, as many Americans of my age do, of spending the time not only with their parents and brothers and sisters, but all the extended members of the family. It seems that even though we have the get-togethers today, it’s at someone’s home and not the large extended families that we had back then.
I also remembered being very much aware from the time I was young as to the significance of the 4th of July holiday. It really was a very important holiday that caused us to remember the sacrifices that those brave Americans who went before us endured in breaking away from England and having the courage to put their lives and their property at risk to form a new nation that would stand for liberty and justice for all. When you think back to the opposition that our American revolutionaries encountered, even with their fellow colonists, who didn’t necessarily agree with their revolutionary views about breaking away from England. You will recall our predecessors went to war with little money, ammunition, and training against the most powerful Army and Navy in the world. It’s mind boggling to think what our founding heroes were able to accomplish! Every 4th of July, I find time to pray for and to thank in my own way those people who went before us and who were willing to lay down their lives in order to create the United States of America.
I was also, during this 4th, able to watch the television show entitled Sons of Liberty, which I felt was a very well produced rendition of the struggles of the people that were actually involved in the early formation of our country. I thought the documentary was very well done and instructive and in large part fairly accurate. I recommend anyone that didn’t have the opportunity to watch this show to pull it up. I think you’ll be glad that you did.
