Smile America, it’s your birthday. Forget the politics and let’s concentrate on the hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and home made ice cream.  The day our nation was born is a day when a patchwork people comes together to celebrate.

E Pluribus Unum (out of many one) is our national motto and it suits us well.  We Americans disagree on many things, and we do not hesitate to air our views to a degree that the rest of the world often finds mystifying.

But, wherever we come from and whatever we think, we are all Americans, and on July 4th we celebrate both our diversity and our unity. This odd dualism is both our strength and our weakness.  It is the unique thing that makes us who we are.

Fireworks and Picnics

We don’t celebrate with military parades, guns and tanks ( although we could). Instead we celebrate with fireworks and picnics and barbeques.  We go to the beach, the local bandshell or the back yard and we eat and drink with the neighbors and play with the kids.  After dark we shoot off fireworks. That’s the way we’ve done it from the very beginning.

Happy birthday America. Enjoy the hamburgers and the fireworks. We’ll get back to the politics next week.