Bang!

Miracle is not happy. She hates the 4th of July. All the loud pops and bangs of the fireworks bother her sensitive ears. So she's hiding in here with me. I don't blame her. Today is the 234th birthday of the USA. I can't remember how long it took me to become bored by the whole hoopla. But at least it's an extra day off (if I'm lucky like this year). It's a day to BBQ hot dogs, eat apple pie and watch baseball (all of which I did today). It's a day to hang out with family, and my brother George stopped to visit us for a short while.

Yeah, I suppose there's still a place for the flags and parades and special renditions of the National Anthem. I remember one year back when I was in the Army at Fort Carson. Me and my friend Humphrey walked up and down the side walks and ran around in the grass field on post waving our miniature flags. It's an example of how the important thing that comes back in memories, more often than not, isn't fireworks, but friends.

So as much as I like to consider myself a worldly person, who has travelled, and happily consumes the culture of the U.K. and Europe and a few other places, there are some American things for which I'm grateful in no particular order:

Semisonic, baseball, great American TV shows (too many to mention), Neil Diamond, New York, great American designers like Marc Jacobs, the iPod, any U.S.A. Olympic team, NPR, malls, open space, Amazon.com, great American authors and books...

Yes, there's more, plenty of them right under my nose, but my brain is too full to download any more. But forget about things. Mostly it's the people, friends, family, all those that make living in this country worthwhile, all those that make it feel like home.