Happy July 4th!

We had a bit of rain this morning. It started just as I went to get the papers. I swear it was done on purpose, but I don’t know whom to blame. I got wet. The sun is out right now, but the storm is heading our way and will be here in the evening and will stay all night with heavy rain and strong winds. Nothing like Mother Nature dramatically celebrating the 4th of July in her own way.

My American flag waves in the front yard all the time. My Peace Corps flag does too. For today I have bunting hung on the fence and a wooden flag on the gate. I am proud to be an America. It is the greatest country in the world. We aren’t always right in what we do, but we usually do it with the best of intentions, and we welcome dissenters who disagree. Look around. You see Americans from so many different places. Try to describe an American, and you can’t give a physical description. The most ardent Americans are often from somewhere else, people who have chosen to become citizens because they see and appreciate the freedoms we enjoy. We have lived with those freedoms all our lives and sometimes we forget what we have. Today is a day to remember we live in the home of the free and the brave.

On July 4th in 1776, the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. They’d been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally agreed on all of the edits and changes.

July 4, 1776, became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence, and the fancy handwritten copy that was signed in August. It’s also the date that was printed on the Dunlap Broadsides, the original printed copies of the Declaration that were circulated throughout the new nation. So when people thought of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 was the date they remembered.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”