Happy birthday, USA

Fourth of July, birth date of the United States of America, and I celebrate it in the most responsible, adult way: I work a double - first giving massages at a hotel high on a hill, and then as a catering server at some party where I get to be an anonymous waitron in black. I'm grateful for the work, since June here in Jackson dragged on with little work and I have a wedding to help pay for this fall. In the back of my mind, though, I remember more youthful and carefree Independence days.


I grew up in a little resort community, Hide-Away-Hills, five hundred residents in the winter, with a considerable influx in the summer. The planners' original intent was that it be a gated retirement enclave, and there were plenty of retirees, but there also quite a few young families like our poorer, working class, Catholic on both sides, tribe of seven who had escaped bigger cities like Columbus for the forest and sub-Appalachian hills of southeastern Ohio. Membership included various amenities, some we never accessed, like the air strip, and others that I knew well, like the pool and lodge. It sounds shi-shi, but for us, not so much, but it was a fantastic way to grow up.

These pool and lodge were close together, the latter just up the hill from the other. This zone was the location of the annual Fourth of July picnic. My memories are vivid with the scent of meat on the barbecue, the steam rising fragrant and making my mouth water, guzzling pop while the adults drank beer, tables groaning under the weight of potluck contributions: casseroles made with dried onions and cream of mushroom soup, bags of chips and bowls of dip, pies, cakes, and plates of brownies and cookies. You'd eat until you were almost sick, and then complain about the 15 minute wait to get in the pool to cool off from the humidity and triple digit temperatures. Then the herd of children would flow to the next source of entertainment: face painting, dunking and kissing booths, carnival games with stuffed animals and goldfish in a bag as prizes. I see red white and blue streamers swaying in the breeze.

After dark, the fireworks would split the sky and reveal the colors hidden inside. Shapes would crackle and morph from a star to a tree to rain that dripped gold, blue, red, green. The black cats would howl, the crack of thunder would fill the night in an otherwise clear sky, and the oohs and aahs of kids and child-at-heart adults provided background.

Today is your day, wherever you are across the country, to show your pride in being a part of this vast, diverse and unique nation. In the United States, there are as many ways to celebrate your patriotism as there are Americans, though some try to decide how that looks for others. This, however, is not truly the American spirit, and I can only hope as America and her Americans get a little older, they will also acquire the wisdom to live and let live, and do no harm in doing so.

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