It was a grand Fourth of July

How often does the Fourth of July come on a Sunday? Every six years? You may have noticed that the fact that the Fourth was in the middle of the holiday weekend made it possible for a body to celebrate it more than once.

First let me say that at least half of my family members think that Independence Day is the best holiday of the year. They love fireworks, fly-bys, and parades. They love barbecues, car shows and warm weather. And they love this country, so they were happy to celebrate all they could. Imagine that.

This year, the celebrations were all over the weekend. Some towns and cities had their fireworks on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was the same with parades and rodeos and all the rest of it.

By traveling between a couple of different cities and a few other destinations, one of our family members saw fireworks twice, took in a couple of barbecues and a roast beef dinner, golfed, shopped, went fishing, saw a car show, and caught a couple of parades. He wasn't quite fast enough to see the fly-by more than once though.
We all had some good times—some laughs, some proud moments, lots of oohs and aahs, good food, tired kids and family fun.

The city where I spent my weekend doesn't have a traditional parade. Instead they have a huge car show; and after it is over, the cars line up and they all cruise up and down Main Street for as long as they want to. They rev their engines, squeal their tires, honk their horns, and show off their cars in the sense of doing a lot more than just parking them at the fairgrounds.

Everyone else lines the streets and cheers and waves and picks their favorites. (What is more American than a Chevy or a Ford?)

Some of the vehicles are still “peeling out” on the city streets two days later. On Monday afternoon, we were visiting and enjoying the weather outside in the backyard when someone who was still celebrating the car show staged a five-second “burn-out” on the street out front. Even after two days of hearing rumbling engines and screeching tires, we all looked toward the street.

We couldn't see the car from where we were standing, but I pictured a red Pontiac GTX with yellow flames and wide mag wheels. Immediately after the screeching stopped, my ten-year-old grandson came flying around the corner of the house on his foot-powered scooter announcing loudly, “That wasn't me.”

On a more serious note, I have been reading some commentary about the genius of the Declaration of Independence and the incomparable foresight of the men who wrote it, as well as the courage of those who adopted it and signed it. The Constitution of the United States rests in the same category. There has probably been nothing to compare with it in all of history.

What I have concluded is that it was no accident that that many great minds were gathered together in one place and in one time—men of great mental capacity who also had the will, the ability, the tenacity and the courage to craft such a framework for governing a people.

And it doesn't seem as if there has been such a concentration of great minds anywhere in the world since, at least not in government. In some arenas there is just no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. The best legislators are probably those who are smart enough to realize “that wasn't me” and then get over it.