🇺🇸 Happy 250th! 🗽

Have a wonderful time!

Discovering dismay had been unnecessary.

Mostly all I can remember from the 1976 Bicentennial was that it was a Really Big Deal. I was too young to understand the meaning, which is probably why I’ve lost all the details. But everyone started getting excited a couple years before it started, and there were elaborate preparations leading up to it, and it was huge. I do remember that!

So about two years ago, I started looking forward to the 250th. I looked around on the web, and nothing much seemed to be happening yet. And then again a year ago. And I checked in occasionally, feeling increasingly baffled and disappointed. I wondered vaguely whether this meant I should do something, instead of expecting it to be delivered to me?

And then it seemed that many people were against the whole thing. I felt increasingly dismayed! Culminating a week ago, when I found out that my home town had actually canceled July 4th outright.

Determined to celebrate anyway, I headed this morning to the nearby village of Niwot, less sophisticated and cynical than Boulder.

I had a wonderful time.

So did everyone else. So many happy people!

I love America. Many of the “yes, but”s are valid, of course. And yet: it was only after the parade was over that I realized, slightly amazed, there was a complete absence of “yes, but”s during the event. There are times for those, and this was not one of them.

I feel a responsibility to care for America. This post is a “yes, and” to the “yes, but”s.

The event made me feel a little ashamed not to be part of something like this:

Niwot is farm country, in part. That is not my natural habitat, but it doesn’t seem alien, and certainly not sneer-worthy.

You’ve probably already read several highly sophisticated takes on the politics of this day. What it all means, and how everything is on fire because of the Bad Tribe, and the author’s clever strategy for fixing it.

I haven’t got anything like that. Just some pictures that make me glad.

That’s a baby goat she’s carrying:

I dressed patriotically for the occasion, and ate a hotdog. I don’t remember when I last ate a hotdog, but 1976 is a pretty good guess.

It was really good! I was surprised! If you haven’t eaten a hotdog since 1976 either, try it! You’ll like it!

If it’s not too late, and even if it seems hokey or somehow politically incorrect, I encourage you to go enjoy the 250th.

Have a wonderful time! 🎉 🎇