The Fourth of July

Today many of my friends and a few of my family will be playing softball, eating ice cream, swimming and attending a national barbecue followed by enough fireworks to upset the air traffic control of the world. Today they will, for the most part, be enjoying themselves just being themselves.

And we will hate them for it.

And we will wish we were there.

I feel somewhat sad that the English have chosen to have little to celebrate. Wimbledon is a wash...again. Not even a brave Scot could save "British Tennis"... again. Associated Football last gave us a thing to celebrate in 1966 and we wait for a repeat. We won The War in 1945 -- yet VE goes unnoticed. We won The War in 1918 -- November 11th is not a day for bunting but reflection. The Colonial Wars are all but forgotten except for a few memorials dotted around and A Level history students (who will forget them once they are in university). Yet, American's have a national blow-out party for a single action that actually took place on July 3rd, 1776.

We don't like them because they took OUR place. One hundred years Britain ruled the world and told everyone how to behave. Now we have to be the Junior Partner to a group of people we consider uncouth and unfit to sit at a table with us. We cut them by claiming they have no culture and their football is a bastardised Rugby. We think they are simple minded for being so devoutly religious. We think their cities are dens of inequity and all who enter have a death wish.

And then we whisper that we wish we could live there.

The Loud Americans with their big cars and horrendous clothes care little for us or so our media masters say. Americans, as put by the country music star Charlie Daniels, "might have done a little bit of fightin' amongst ourselves,", but today they celebrate being a single people. With the exception of the Native Americans, they know they have come to this peice of land from all over with a single dream of creating a place worthy of life. Yes, they have made a mess of it at times. Then again, so have we. Yet, they do care about us because they remember that once their family wasn't there. And on this day Americans will celebrate both how they are different and how they are the same.

Perhaps we should look carefully at what Americans are celebrating. They too have a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that is filled with debt, disease and fear. Yet they seem to rise above it better than we do. And yes, their national holiday is in the middle of summer which is a grand time to have party. Our forgotten St. George's Day(23 April) is usually raining and cold. They do not equate love of country with racism or a political party. They are proud to fly their flag and ask for God's blessings on their country. Most Americans still consider the single most important character trait is honesty.

July 4: another reason to hate Americans for getting something right.

Another reason to wish we were there.