I wrote the below post the day after the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut back in December, 2012. Since then, there have been multiple mass shootings across this country, the most recent one in Roseburg, Oregon. With every shooting, there is a hoarse cry of "Why?" immediately countered with a pushback from the NRA and gun advocates as to how this was somehow the fault of gun-free zones (so the victims and the state are responsible for this) or, in the words of presidential candidate Jeb Bush, "stuff happens."
I grew up around guns. My dad hunted; my brothers hunted with him. I never got taken out hunting, but I learned to shoot. I do not own a gun, but I am not opposed to others owning them. I do not see gun owners as either evil or idiots. But I fervently believe that screaming that any type of gun control violates the Second Amendment and the only safe nation is an armed nation is idiotic and leads to senseless deaths. I do not believe that limiting access to guns is a step towards fascism or anarchy. I also do not believe the answer is to say "well, that shooter was mentally ill" and pretend there is no further issue to discuss.
The further issue is this: we should not have to take our lives into our own hands when we go to school, or go to worship, or go about our everyday lives. I should not be forced to carry a weapon to defend myself as I go about my daily routine. And I should not have the NRA dictating to our political leaders a "hands off" gun policy in this nation and accusing me of being anti-American and unpatriotic because I disagree.
I believe that as this nation becomes more polarized along religious, racial, and political lines, the potential for acts of mass violence grows. In a polarized world where we have eliminated civil discourse, it is just as easy to shoot to silence the opposing view as it is to argue. After all, "stuff happens."
I have started identifying publicly as Jewish and liberal, because, as I tell sympathetic friends, when the extremists start lining people up, I want there to be no question where I stand.
Here is my blog from December 2012. This is for the victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting:
It is the morning after and I am baking.
28 families in Newtown, Connecticut are making funeral arrangements, 20 of them for small children who did not live to see Christmas this year.
And I am baking.
My mind keeps churning over the news. My thoughts reel back to Columbine and watching the news that night with my hand to my throat and the tears rolling down my face. This morning as I read the online newspaper, my hand went immediately to my throat and the tears started again.
And I am baking.
My wonderful, beautiful daughter-in-law Alise mirrored my thoughts on her Facebook post last night and I would repost her words here if I could. But Facebook is balking so I am able only to summarize them. (I will post Alise's moving words in a separate post in the next day or two when Facebook decides to cooperate.) Alise cried out to us to focus on the children who were killed, not on the killer and what made him tick. Forget him. What Alise wanted to know is what the children's favorite colors were, could they tie their shoes, what games they liked to play. Alise wanted us all to remember these were children, with the little things that make up a child's life: a favorite book, a stuffed animal, a song sung in class.
And I am baking, filling the house with the scent of biscotti, wondering what cookies those children liked and whether they had yet done any holiday baking with their mothers, their fathers, their grandparents.
I think of Ramona as I roll the dough with my hands. When Ben was a little boy, there was the Cleveland School shooting in Stockton, California, where we lived at the time. We were horrified. And then came Padukah. And Columbine. Yet despite that violence—violence at a school—I still sent Ben and Sam off each day with my biggest worry being a traffic accident.
Those were just random acts of violence, I thought at the time. But increasingly, they are not. And as I look at Ramona in all her three-month old glory, I fear her parents live in a world—in this country, for God's sake—where they will send her to school someday and pray she not be gunned down in her classroom while she recites her ABCs.
And I am baking.
In Making Piece, Beth Howard wrote: "In those late autumn days, as winter approached, all I did was bake. With each push of the rolling pin...my soul was soothed and my heart mended a little more."
It is the day after Newtown and I am baking.
Showing posts with label patriotism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patriotism. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Inch Seventy-Six: A Short One
We have been out of town for four days. This was our vacation that started out as the take-2-weeks-and-go-to-
The Symphony and its incessant demands upon Warren first and our household second is the reason the vacation got cut down, but as I quickly learned during our abbreviated travels, my health and energy levels were not up to a lengthy, extensive road trip. (Food for thought as we peer into the future.) I loved Fallingwater (my first time there), I loved Gettysburg (my third or fourth time there), and I loved turning back into our driveway at about 6:45 tonight.
I am too worn out to write much and not yet ready to reflect on everything, but I wanted to talk briefly about the Gettysburg Address. You cannot be at Gettysburg without being aware of Lincoln's speech, 271 words (by the most accepted version) that some historians say presented us with a new perspective on what the vision of the "United States" really meant. So it is no surprise that the Address is prominent throughout the Visitor's Center, and that in addition to hearing it in the film "A New Birth of Freedom," one can also sit in a gallery devoted to the Address and hear it repeatedly.
Whenever I have heard or thought of the ending of the Address, I have always heard the prepositions stressed: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "But in the version I heard this week, the stress was different: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." It was such a radically different reading that I walked back to the one gallery and listened to the Address three more times.
To put the emphasis on the people turned the Address inside out for me. It has always been meaningful; now it became powerful as well.
We are not engaged in a great civil war in the same way this nation was 150 years ago. It is difficult to be at Gettysburg and not realize the tremendous scope of that battle and that war. But we are caught up in a time of uncertainty and unrest. For me and many of my friends, this is a time of feeling we are losing precious ground on issues of race, gender, fairness, equality, civility. As the 2016 presidential race gears up ridiculously early and the GOP frontrunner is a flamingly offensive, misogynistic, racist bigot, I think back to Lincoln and those 271 words.
Of the people.
By the people.
For the people.
Let us indeed hold tight onto that hope.
The Symphony and its incessant demands upon Warren first and our household second is the reason the vacation got cut down, but as I quickly learned during our abbreviated travels, my health and energy levels were not up to a lengthy, extensive road trip. (Food for thought as we peer into the future.) I loved Fallingwater (my first time there), I loved Gettysburg (my third or fourth time there), and I loved turning back into our driveway at about 6:45 tonight.
I am too worn out to write much and not yet ready to reflect on everything, but I wanted to talk briefly about the Gettysburg Address. You cannot be at Gettysburg without being aware of Lincoln's speech, 271 words (by the most accepted version) that some historians say presented us with a new perspective on what the vision of the "United States" really meant. So it is no surprise that the Address is prominent throughout the Visitor's Center, and that in addition to hearing it in the film "A New Birth of Freedom," one can also sit in a gallery devoted to the Address and hear it repeatedly.
Whenever I have heard or thought of the ending of the Address, I have always heard the prepositions stressed: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "But in the version I heard this week, the stress was different: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." It was such a radically different reading that I walked back to the one gallery and listened to the Address three more times.
To put the emphasis on the people turned the Address inside out for me. It has always been meaningful; now it became powerful as well.
We are not engaged in a great civil war in the same way this nation was 150 years ago. It is difficult to be at Gettysburg and not realize the tremendous scope of that battle and that war. But we are caught up in a time of uncertainty and unrest. For me and many of my friends, this is a time of feeling we are losing precious ground on issues of race, gender, fairness, equality, civility. As the 2016 presidential race gears up ridiculously early and the GOP frontrunner is a flamingly offensive, misogynistic, racist bigot, I think back to Lincoln and those 271 words.
Of the people.
By the people.
For the people.
Let us indeed hold tight onto that hope.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Inch Seventy-One: Days of Gold
During the weeks of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, my morning routine was to wake up, turn on the computer, pull up the New York Times, and weep.
Lately it has been deja vu all over again. While some of the tears are good (the announcement of the Obergefell decision, for example), many have been in sorrow and anguish at more sobering events, especially the murders in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopalian Church by a white racist terrorist. I have been appalled by the reactions to the shooting, which are not the actions of a mad man, but the actions of a domestic terrorist. I have suffered through tortured explanations of mental illness and calls for gun control, but have heard few honest discussions of racism and racial hatred. (I swear, if Hitler were around today, there would be an ongoing debate of mental illness and whether he should be allowed access to Zyklon B, and no honest discussion of the fact that he and his nation murdered eleven million people, six million of them solely because they hated Jews.)
As I listened to the discussions spin this way and that way about the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse, I was not sure which way the decision would go. I have heard cries of free speech, I have heard cries of Southern (white) heritage, I have heard a lot of racist cant wrapped in the First Amendment and the American flag. (And lest I be tarred with the "you don't get it" brush, let me point out that during the Civil War, my father's family, which was in the border state of Kentucky, fought on both sides. His paternal line fought for the Union and wore blue, his maternal line, who may have been slaveowners, wore gray and fought for the Confederacy. So yes, I do "get" it.)
Since yesterday, the tears have been in admiration and gratitude for South Carolina Representative Jenny Horne:
I have listened to this speech six or more times and have cried each time.
This morning I had a liver biopsy to check scarring on my liver before starting a new type of chemotherapy. After coming home and sleeping for several hours, I awoke to see this:
I started crying seven minutes into the video, when the state troopers came out to lower the flag. But it was at nine minutes and ten seconds, when the flag is finally lowered, that the tears came in earnest.
There are times I despair of the polarization and deep divides in this nation of ours. There are times when I weep thinking we are going backwards in time to an uglier era. There are times when I feel we will splinter into little tiny mini-states, each with our own dearly cherished beliefs, each with its own supreme confidence that its viewpoint and its viewpoint alone is the only right position, which frees all of us from the hard work of listening thoughtfully and carefully to different points of view.
And then there are days of gold, in which a woman like Jenny Horne speaks from her heart, no matter how much her voice shakes, and I am encouraged to go on.
Lately it has been deja vu all over again. While some of the tears are good (the announcement of the Obergefell decision, for example), many have been in sorrow and anguish at more sobering events, especially the murders in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopalian Church by a white racist terrorist. I have been appalled by the reactions to the shooting, which are not the actions of a mad man, but the actions of a domestic terrorist. I have suffered through tortured explanations of mental illness and calls for gun control, but have heard few honest discussions of racism and racial hatred. (I swear, if Hitler were around today, there would be an ongoing debate of mental illness and whether he should be allowed access to Zyklon B, and no honest discussion of the fact that he and his nation murdered eleven million people, six million of them solely because they hated Jews.)
As I listened to the discussions spin this way and that way about the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse, I was not sure which way the decision would go. I have heard cries of free speech, I have heard cries of Southern (white) heritage, I have heard a lot of racist cant wrapped in the First Amendment and the American flag. (And lest I be tarred with the "you don't get it" brush, let me point out that during the Civil War, my father's family, which was in the border state of Kentucky, fought on both sides. His paternal line fought for the Union and wore blue, his maternal line, who may have been slaveowners, wore gray and fought for the Confederacy. So yes, I do "get" it.)
Since yesterday, the tears have been in admiration and gratitude for South Carolina Representative Jenny Horne:
I have listened to this speech six or more times and have cried each time.
This morning I had a liver biopsy to check scarring on my liver before starting a new type of chemotherapy. After coming home and sleeping for several hours, I awoke to see this:
I started crying seven minutes into the video, when the state troopers came out to lower the flag. But it was at nine minutes and ten seconds, when the flag is finally lowered, that the tears came in earnest.
There are times I despair of the polarization and deep divides in this nation of ours. There are times when I weep thinking we are going backwards in time to an uglier era. There are times when I feel we will splinter into little tiny mini-states, each with our own dearly cherished beliefs, each with its own supreme confidence that its viewpoint and its viewpoint alone is the only right position, which frees all of us from the hard work of listening thoughtfully and carefully to different points of view.
And then there are days of gold, in which a woman like Jenny Horne speaks from her heart, no matter how much her voice shakes, and I am encouraged to go on.
Friday, July 3, 2015
Inch Seventy: The 4th of July
In 1776, shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail about the momentous occasion:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. 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.
Being married to the Symphony, I tend to see the local fireworks over the tops of buildings as a number of us labor away after the concert to strike the stage. It is fun but it is not the same as sitting out on the road or in the flat practice fields, staring up at the sky.
Never mind. This year I have fireworks close at hand, in the vegetable garden that never became a vegetable garden. They do not pop and boom, but they do hum with bees. And in their colors are the colors that will light the night tomorrow evening.
"Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
And flowers.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
One Decade
Even if we are not all writing about it today, we are thinking about it. Even if we claim we are not thinking about it, we are.
Those of us who experienced September 11, 2001, carry a psychic wound deep inside us. We know where we were when we first heard, where we were when it sank in this was not an accident.
My law partner Scott came to the office some 20 minutes after I did that day and told me he'd have been there sooner but there'd been a plane crash at the World Trade Center. He happened to have a radio in his office and so found a news station. Minutes later he yelled in disbelief as the second plane hit. Then they were saying something about the Pentagon.
By then, I was in Scott's office. We looked at each other. The Pentagon? What the ...?
The first tower came down as Scott and I were driving to my house to get in front of a television set. We both started yelling in disbelief and shock as the radio blared the news. The second tower came down just as we turned on the television, and we yelled again.
Flight 93 had already hit the ground.
Scott's friend, Bob, a New York firefighter, was already dead. His body would later be found in one of the tower stairwells. He died trying to save lives.
My boys were both in school that day. Ben, then a sophomore, spent the day in the same classroom as they suspended the schedule and kept everyone in front of televisions. Sam was at the 5th-6th middle school, and someone decided to keep the story from the students so as not to alarm them. Rumors leaked out all the same, and finally Sam and others learned the story from the gym teacher.
Sam was only 11.
Ben was only 15.
For the next 24 hours, everyone everywhere stayed in front of a television set. Even when I finally slept, I saw the towers peel down in my sleep. The next morning, I snapped the set back on and resumed watching.
Last Friday night I went online and looked at pictures and videos of that day. I was stunned at how much I had already forgotten in a decade.
Two memories I have carried close through this whole decade. The first is the members of Congress addressing the nation that evening from the steps of the Capitol, then singing "God Bless America." Raggedy at first, they finished strong. When I saw it ten years ago, I burst into tears. When I saw it again Friday night, I wept anew.
The other memory is that of Sam creeping into the television room early on the 12th while I watched international coverage. The story was delivered in French; the footage showed military boats racing across the water. Sam watched intently, then turned and asked "are they coming to bomb us too?" When I said no, that was a French story about the US military response, tears trickled down Sam's cheeks and I hugged him hard, my tears falling on his head.
My life has changed in innumerable ways, so very many of them for the better, since that terrible day. Our country has changed in innumerable ways, not all of them good, since that terrible day.
My boys are now grown, now 2500 miles away. If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to their sides.
If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to this country.
It has already been a decade.
It has already been a lifetime.
It has only been since yesterday.
Those of us who experienced September 11, 2001, carry a psychic wound deep inside us. We know where we were when we first heard, where we were when it sank in this was not an accident.
My law partner Scott came to the office some 20 minutes after I did that day and told me he'd have been there sooner but there'd been a plane crash at the World Trade Center. He happened to have a radio in his office and so found a news station. Minutes later he yelled in disbelief as the second plane hit. Then they were saying something about the Pentagon.
By then, I was in Scott's office. We looked at each other. The Pentagon? What the ...?
The first tower came down as Scott and I were driving to my house to get in front of a television set. We both started yelling in disbelief and shock as the radio blared the news. The second tower came down just as we turned on the television, and we yelled again.
Flight 93 had already hit the ground.
Scott's friend, Bob, a New York firefighter, was already dead. His body would later be found in one of the tower stairwells. He died trying to save lives.
My boys were both in school that day. Ben, then a sophomore, spent the day in the same classroom as they suspended the schedule and kept everyone in front of televisions. Sam was at the 5th-6th middle school, and someone decided to keep the story from the students so as not to alarm them. Rumors leaked out all the same, and finally Sam and others learned the story from the gym teacher.
Sam was only 11.
Ben was only 15.
For the next 24 hours, everyone everywhere stayed in front of a television set. Even when I finally slept, I saw the towers peel down in my sleep. The next morning, I snapped the set back on and resumed watching.
Last Friday night I went online and looked at pictures and videos of that day. I was stunned at how much I had already forgotten in a decade.
Two memories I have carried close through this whole decade. The first is the members of Congress addressing the nation that evening from the steps of the Capitol, then singing "God Bless America." Raggedy at first, they finished strong. When I saw it ten years ago, I burst into tears. When I saw it again Friday night, I wept anew.
The other memory is that of Sam creeping into the television room early on the 12th while I watched international coverage. The story was delivered in French; the footage showed military boats racing across the water. Sam watched intently, then turned and asked "are they coming to bomb us too?" When I said no, that was a French story about the US military response, tears trickled down Sam's cheeks and I hugged him hard, my tears falling on his head.
My life has changed in innumerable ways, so very many of them for the better, since that terrible day. Our country has changed in innumerable ways, not all of them good, since that terrible day.
My boys are now grown, now 2500 miles away. If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to their sides.
If something of this magnitude happens again, I will send my swiftest prayers and hopes to this country.
It has already been a decade.
It has already been a lifetime.
It has only been since yesterday.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
One Really Special Moment
Last night Warren and I attended a talent show, an annual fundraiser put on to support our local developmental disabilities board. We did not realize until the show started that, except for three "guest" acts, all of the other acts, whether solo or group, were performed by individuals who were developmentally disabled. That made for some unexpected moments of both poignancy and hilarity, depending on the act and the performer.
The show theme was a World War II style USO show. The acts were unabashedly and enthusiastically patriotic. The audience clapped and cheered loudly for every singer, dancer, and actor. More than once I found myself swallowing around a large lump in my throat one moment, and then cheering loudly the next.
As we drove home, Warren and I discussed our favorite moments and I recounted several. Then I said, "no, there was one really special moment."
Partway through the first half, the next act listed was "God Bless America," to be performed by Mickey McNamara. Mickey, an older man of indeterminate age, came awkwardly onto the stage, a small accordion hanging from its strap around his neck. He smiled nervously, pumped the bellows once, and then played, not "God Bless America," but "O Beautiful." Laboring over the notes, he made it to the end and grinned at the applause. The emcee thanked him and we all waited for Mickey to leave the stage. Instead, he leaned over and said something to the emcee, who announced Mickey was playing an encore. The audience quieted down.
Mickey studied his accordion. He tried one chord, then tried another. He made a false start and frowned. He tried a different chord and must have heard something he liked. Mickey then started playing his encore piece.
It was hard to recognize the music at first. The tune was broken, the rhythm was irregular. There were missed notes which Mickey went back and replayed. But all the same, a rustle started in the crowd and many of us started stirring in our seats.
A few of us stood up, then a few more stood. Soon the whole audience was on its feet, singing along to Mickey's tune.
He was playing "The Star Spangled Banner."
Mickey never looked up from his hard work. He concentrated fiercely on the chords and notes, drawing the bellows out and pressing them back in to make the breathy tones of the accordion. He had no idea we were all standing, singing along to his erratic beat.
When he finished and the accordion went silent, Mickey finally looked up to see us all standing and applauding. He smiled - a great, face-splitting smile - and then left the stage.
We all applauded hard as he walked away. We clapped for our country, for our national anthem, and for Mickey, who passionately and seriously, to his own rhythm and tune, gave us one really special moment in a night full of special moments.
The show theme was a World War II style USO show. The acts were unabashedly and enthusiastically patriotic. The audience clapped and cheered loudly for every singer, dancer, and actor. More than once I found myself swallowing around a large lump in my throat one moment, and then cheering loudly the next.
As we drove home, Warren and I discussed our favorite moments and I recounted several. Then I said, "no, there was one really special moment."
Partway through the first half, the next act listed was "God Bless America," to be performed by Mickey McNamara. Mickey, an older man of indeterminate age, came awkwardly onto the stage, a small accordion hanging from its strap around his neck. He smiled nervously, pumped the bellows once, and then played, not "God Bless America," but "O Beautiful." Laboring over the notes, he made it to the end and grinned at the applause. The emcee thanked him and we all waited for Mickey to leave the stage. Instead, he leaned over and said something to the emcee, who announced Mickey was playing an encore. The audience quieted down.
Mickey studied his accordion. He tried one chord, then tried another. He made a false start and frowned. He tried a different chord and must have heard something he liked. Mickey then started playing his encore piece.
It was hard to recognize the music at first. The tune was broken, the rhythm was irregular. There were missed notes which Mickey went back and replayed. But all the same, a rustle started in the crowd and many of us started stirring in our seats.
A few of us stood up, then a few more stood. Soon the whole audience was on its feet, singing along to Mickey's tune.
He was playing "The Star Spangled Banner."
Mickey never looked up from his hard work. He concentrated fiercely on the chords and notes, drawing the bellows out and pressing them back in to make the breathy tones of the accordion. He had no idea we were all standing, singing along to his erratic beat.
When he finished and the accordion went silent, Mickey finally looked up to see us all standing and applauding. He smiled - a great, face-splitting smile - and then left the stage.
We all applauded hard as he walked away. We clapped for our country, for our national anthem, and for Mickey, who passionately and seriously, to his own rhythm and tune, gave us one really special moment in a night full of special moments.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Happy 4th of July!
I love the 4th of July. It is my favorite holiday hands down. I love our city parade, I love the concert in the evening, I love the fireworks, I love it all.
Our parade is small by big city standards, but that does not diminish my pleasure in it one whit. You can't watch it without knowing someone in the procession - a Cub Scout, a clarinetist in the high school band, someone driving a decorated tractor. Aunt Ginger lives on the parade route and we will all gather there to wave and laugh as our friends go by.
The evening concert is special for lots of reasons, starting with that it is put on for free by our local symphony, the Central Ohio Symphony. This is the same symphony that my husband Warren is the executive director of and that back in April raised over 2000 pounds of food for our local food pantry with just one benefit concert (a national record).
In short, this is one great symphony before they even begin to play.
On July 4th, the orchestra plays a mixture of patriotic songs and Broadway and movie hits. This year, because it is the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon, music from "Apollo 13" has made its way into the lineup.
The symphony plays outdoors on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University, which nestles right up to our downtown. Seating is on the lawn. We bring picnic dinners, sodas, lawn chairs, desserts, blankets, wine, and sparklers; children run up and down the walkways; everyone and everything is decked out in red, white and blue.
This concert draws 5000 or more annually. It is not a noisy crowd but neither is it a performance hall quiet crowd. There is always a low undercurrent of talk, of friends greeting friends, of old neighbors reconnecting. Crowd enthusiasm is obvious from the opening ("Fanfare for the Common Man" and the Star Spangled Banner) and does not diminish the rest of the evening.
During "Armed Forces Salute," veterans and active service personnel stand when their military branch's theme song is played. My dad and brother Mark will be on their feet for the Army; my friend John Smith, a WWII veteran who was at Iwo Jima, will stand up for the Marines. We the audience will applaud enthusiastically.
The last two pieces are always the same: Tschaikovsky's "1812 Overture," followed by Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever." Before the last note has faded, concertgoers are up and moving half a block over to see the city fireworks display. The street by the campus is closed off and we all pitch our chairs and blankets right there on the road or the practice fields and look up until the first one explodes.
I'm also a sucker for fireworks. Always have been. There is something about seeing those colors bloom, shimmer, and fade away that thrills me every year. I ooh and aah right along with everyone else, and "everyone else" includes everyone who was at the concert just 10 minutes earlier.
It is a perfect evening.
30 summers ago, when I was 23, I traveled around Europe for six weeks. I was in Hamburg (then West Germany) on July 4 and homesick, not for my apartment but for America. I wanted to be there - anywhere - in the United States that day. I have never missed another one, including even the summer I was being treated for myeloma and in between stem cell transplants when the 4th came around.
I almost always spend the concert with Sally and Chris, who were my across-the-alley neighbors when I first
moved back to Delaware. Back then, we would watch the concert and the fireworks together, then come home and let the kids light sparklers and smoke bombs and throw pop drops until late into the evening. Those were magical days for the children and any of them at the mention of the 4th will still say "remember when we used to light all those fireworks in the backyard after we got home?"
Yes, I do.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail his thoughts about celebrating Independence Day:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. 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.
Adams was actually writing about July 2, which was the day the Continental Congress approved the idea of independence. The vote on the Declaration of Independence did not come until the 4th, which is why we have celebrated that day as Independence Day ever since.
No matter. Adams was dead on right when he wrote he believed that succeeding generations would continue to mark the day. The notion that individuals could come together and create a nation founded on principles of justice and equality was a stunning, indeed a revolutionary, idea for its time. It continues to be so today. We the people have not always lived up to those principles, but we the people continue to strive towards realizing them. I am optimistic enough to believe that the ideals that drove Adams and his colleagues to take that giant and dangerous leap into the unknown continue to guide us yet today.
Adams wanted us to mark Independence Day with "Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
I'm with him.
Our parade is small by big city standards, but that does not diminish my pleasure in it one whit. You can't watch it without knowing someone in the procession - a Cub Scout, a clarinetist in the high school band, someone driving a decorated tractor. Aunt Ginger lives on the parade route and we will all gather there to wave and laugh as our friends go by.
The evening concert is special for lots of reasons, starting with that it is put on for free by our local symphony, the Central Ohio Symphony. This is the same symphony that my husband Warren is the executive director of and that back in April raised over 2000 pounds of food for our local food pantry with just one benefit concert (a national record).
In short, this is one great symphony before they even begin to play.
On July 4th, the orchestra plays a mixture of patriotic songs and Broadway and movie hits. This year, because it is the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon, music from "Apollo 13" has made its way into the lineup.
The symphony plays outdoors on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University, which nestles right up to our downtown. Seating is on the lawn. We bring picnic dinners, sodas, lawn chairs, desserts, blankets, wine, and sparklers; children run up and down the walkways; everyone and everything is decked out in red, white and blue.
This concert draws 5000 or more annually. It is not a noisy crowd but neither is it a performance hall quiet crowd. There is always a low undercurrent of talk, of friends greeting friends, of old neighbors reconnecting. Crowd enthusiasm is obvious from the opening ("Fanfare for the Common Man" and the Star Spangled Banner) and does not diminish the rest of the evening.
During "Armed Forces Salute," veterans and active service personnel stand when their military branch's theme song is played. My dad and brother Mark will be on their feet for the Army; my friend John Smith, a WWII veteran who was at Iwo Jima, will stand up for the Marines. We the audience will applaud enthusiastically.
The last two pieces are always the same: Tschaikovsky's "1812 Overture," followed by Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever." Before the last note has faded, concertgoers are up and moving half a block over to see the city fireworks display. The street by the campus is closed off and we all pitch our chairs and blankets right there on the road or the practice fields and look up until the first one explodes.
I'm also a sucker for fireworks. Always have been. There is something about seeing those colors bloom, shimmer, and fade away that thrills me every year. I ooh and aah right along with everyone else, and "everyone else" includes everyone who was at the concert just 10 minutes earlier.
It is a perfect evening.
30 summers ago, when I was 23, I traveled around Europe for six weeks. I was in Hamburg (then West Germany) on July 4 and homesick, not for my apartment but for America. I wanted to be there - anywhere - in the United States that day. I have never missed another one, including even the summer I was being treated for myeloma and in between stem cell transplants when the 4th came around.
I almost always spend the concert with Sally and Chris, who were my across-the-alley neighbors when I first
moved back to Delaware. Back then, we would watch the concert and the fireworks together, then come home and let the kids light sparklers and smoke bombs and throw pop drops until late into the evening. Those were magical days for the children and any of them at the mention of the 4th will still say "remember when we used to light all those fireworks in the backyard after we got home?"Yes, I do.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail his thoughts about celebrating Independence Day:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. 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.
Adams was actually writing about July 2, which was the day the Continental Congress approved the idea of independence. The vote on the Declaration of Independence did not come until the 4th, which is why we have celebrated that day as Independence Day ever since.
No matter. Adams was dead on right when he wrote he believed that succeeding generations would continue to mark the day. The notion that individuals could come together and create a nation founded on principles of justice and equality was a stunning, indeed a revolutionary, idea for its time. It continues to be so today. We the people have not always lived up to those principles, but we the people continue to strive towards realizing them. I am optimistic enough to believe that the ideals that drove Adams and his colleagues to take that giant and dangerous leap into the unknown continue to guide us yet today.
Adams wanted us to mark Independence Day with "Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
I'm with him.
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