Thoughts on Independence Day

Happy 250th Birthday America!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, my friends. Welcome to our Amazing Journey podcast. This is Mike, your humble host, looking forward to another half hour of fun, fellowship, frivolity. We're going to have a great discussion today, great podcast about the Fourth of July. Historically, throughout my life, it has been one of my favorite holidays. And we'll get into why and some particulars here. This 4th of July here in the United States is very special. It will be known as the semi-quincentennial anniversary, which is a fancy way of saying our 250th birthday as a nation. Why do we celebrate the 4th of July? Well, if you go to the National Archives, the answer to that question is that it formally recognized the severance of political connections to Great Britain. Again, that's off of NationalArchives.com. The actual vote to declare independence from Great Britain actually took place on July 2nd, 1776. There was a declaration of independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Things being how they were at the time, they certainly didn't have word processors and on-screen editing. They couldn't put things up on a projector. So the founding fathers of this country spent just about 48 hours with very little sleep in sweltering conditions because it's hot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the summertime. Once again, no running water, no air conditioning, long days. And they hammered out details that everybody agreed to on July 4th, 1776. And truth be told, the signers of the Declaration of Independence didn't all get their signatures on the piece of paper until August 2, 1776. But on July 4th, once all the changes between the drafters of the Declaration of Independence were done, they sent it to a local printer who printed out 200 extra large copies of it and sent it all over the place to be read. Because again, that's how Word was promulgated at the time. You had educated people that would read to a lot of the people who couldn't. Interesting story. Two of the heavy hitters that drafted the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both died on July 4, 1826. They were the last surviving members of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they both died on the 4th of July after reaffirming that they did the right thing and that they hoped that freedom and liberty in this country would go on until the end of time. So that's our brief history lesson. We're going to stop for just a moment and go into our College of Musical Knowledge. And I'm going to share three songs that resonate with me for Independence Day. The first one is titled Independence Day by Martina McBride. Hit the charts in 1994. It was off her Way That I Am album. And it has a double meaning. If you listen to the song, it's about a young girl who has issues with abuse and violence at home, so she goes to the county fair on the 4th of July. So in addition to the setting being July 4th, if you listen to the lyrics of the song, her mother deals with an abusive husband/slash father in a very drastic way. Not in a way that we condone on this podcast, but the way that she dealt with did give them both freedom from abuse. So it's kind of a tip of the hat for domestic violence awareness. Catchy beat, though, Martina McBride, Independence Day. The second song, God Bless the USA, by Lee Greenwood from 1984. That comes off of his You've Got a Good Love Comin' album. This has been used by politicians, various politicians, made famous by Ronald Reagan when he was looking to be re-elected as president in 1984. But uh God bless the USA indeed. And then sticking with the country music theme, I have to give a shout out to one of my favorite performers, the late great Toby Keith. And his courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, the hit from 2002, off of his Unleashed album, came out shortly after we went to war over in the Middle East again, in Afghanistan and then on to Iraq. So if you haven't heard those songs, I encourage you to look them up and get the little patriotic beat going in your hearts. So coming back to the 4th of July, it is celebrated here in the United States for my listeners worldwide. And just as a side note, I am humbled by the amount of downloads that I'm getting, period, or in general, but you know, specifically for my listeners overseas. We've got listeners from South America, from Europe, from Asia, and from Africa. We have not yet cracked the code uh in Oceania, but I'm confident we will. I believe we have a good message here. And for all of my listeners everywhere, thank you so much. Thank you for making the time and taking the time to download and listen to me. For those that send the emails, thank you so much for taking the time to put your thoughts into words and send them my way. They mean the world to me. I say it every week and I will continue to say it every week. The most precious gift we can give one another is our time. Thank you so much for giving me yours. But again, for folks who do not live in the United States and have never visited here during the Fourth of July, we we celebrate it in some interesting ways. Um, there are a lot of cookouts and picnics, barbecues, and there's uh usually some loud music, oftentimes copious amounts of um alcohol and perhaps some other stimulants. And what would a celebration without copious amounts of alcohol and other stimulants be? With um without fireworks and explosions, things going boom and pop and pretty colors. Um because what could go wrong? So I'll say it for the first time. If you are going to celebrate our Independence Day, and I believe that everybody should, we do a pretty good job on this podcast of staying out of politics, regardless of what political party is in power, regardless of what your political ideologies and beliefs are. This is the greatest nation in the history of the world. Our issues are many still, but we have to be doing something right because never in the history of the world have so many people been trying to get to one place for the opportunity of a better life. And there's a reason for that. If you don't or have never met an immigrant to this country, when you cross paths with one, ask them why they're here. And the vast majority of them will tell you it's because of the freedom. In my former life as a career military officer, I've been blessed to go all over the world. I have never been to another nation or area or region that has the freedoms that we have here. The freedom of speech, the ability to protest, the ability to speak your peace about issues and not be thrown in jail for them. I I get choked up. I really do. I can't help it. It was the reason that, you know, a younger version of myself at 18 years old said it's time for me to do my time and protect this nation and give the taxpayers and the politicians of this country a blank check which I may have to sign in blood with my life. And I'll do it if necessary. So that people here can continue to be free. And it's not just me. From the start of this nation to present day, there have been millions and millions of men and women that have done it and will continue to do it. It isn't for the money. It isn't for the college education. Anybody who puts on the cloth of this nation has some level of patriotism within them, and with good reason. I'm gonna break here in the podcast and give our shout-outs a little bit earlier than we normally do. Because I think this is a good spot to break, and then I want to get into some things that flow together, and I don't want it to be choppy. This podcast endorsements are going to be a little bit different. Normally, it's a a product that I like that I use that I like to put in my kisser. This week we're gonna talk about certain types of people. My first shout out is going to go to first responders and the dispatchers that help send them where they need to go. There are an awful lot of injuries and accidents on the 4th of July. There just are. This holiday more than most. It's the heat. Again, it's the alcohol, it's the stimulants. Some people get in vehicles and drive when they shouldn't. Some people believe they're explosive ordnance disposal experts, and they're not. And that's how you end up with a nickname like Stump as fingers and hands get mangled from explosions. People losing eyes, people losing their hearing by messing around with things they really should know better and not mess around with. And it's the dispatcher manning the 911 station that gets that call and sends police, EMTs, paramedics, firefighters. They're the first ones that usually deal with it. So I want to thank all of you. If you're a first responder, you're a dispatcher. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for looking out for us. Even those among us who may have temporarily taken leave of our senses. The second level of folks that I want to give a shout out to are our nurses, our doctors, our paramedics that are working in the hospital, the orderlies, the aides, the cooks, the clergy people, the pharmacists who are on duty in the middle of the night, making sure everybody has what they need to try to be on the road to recovery. Sometimes, folks, we get in the mindset that the whole world is on a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 shift, and at 5 o'clock, everybody just goes home and everything else just automatically runs like clockwork. And that's not the case. The aforementioned folks are on duty 24-7 and they're to help us when we're we need them the most when we're at our most vulnerable. So for all of you in the healthcare professions and the spiritual care professions, all of the folks that are sitting there on the crisis lines when people are having a hard time, thank you for what you do. You're all heroes and heroines to me. And I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to everybody that is wearing a uniform, wearing the cloth of our nation to promote freedom and democracy around the world, that obey without question the legal and lawful orders of our commander-in-chief, regardless of who that commander-in-chief is. Ladies and gentlemen, right now there are people that are legally not old enough to buy a bottle of beer in the mainland United States of America who are standing their posts in a military manner in some pretty flippin' miserable conditions. They are in harm's way. There are sailors in very hot, uncomfortable spaces in harm's way. Soldiers, Marines, airmen, members of the Space Force, Coast Guard members. They're doing very, very difficult things that the average rank and file American doesn't think about, doesn't break their radar. And they're gonna come home when their time is done, be it three years, four years, twenty-five years, and they're gonna have to live with some pretty unpleasant memories. In some cases, every night of their lives when they try to sleep. Y'all are heroes to me too. For a long time, when I was young and fast and strong and not physically broken, I stood those lines and I stood those posts with you. And I'm very grateful that you're there. Thank you. I won't apologize for the emotion, folks. This country came into being for a variety of reasons. Anybody who knows me at all knows that I'm an Anglophile. The years that I spent over in Great Britain, working at the time with Her Majesty, now His Majesty's forces, left quite an impression on me. I'm more of an Anglophile now than I ever was. And when I would be over in the United Kingdom and we the topic of the American Revolution would come up without to a person, a Brit would say, well, it was just a disagreement among Englishmen. And they would be correct. But the issue was freedom. They didn't want to pay heavy taxes to a king whose beliefs were not in alignment with theirs anymore. They didn't want to have to provide housing and shelter for the king's army anymore. Because back in the day, there were no Hilton, there were no Hyatt Regency honor points. There was none of that. If they were marching, if British troops, the red coats, were marching through your town and it was rainy or snowy or they just didn't want to sleep in tents or under the stars, the officer would walk into the village and just start assigning people to your home. Oh, you have four daughters, and you're not comfortable having 12, 18, or 19-year-old hormone-infested men sleeping under your roof with them? Well, sucks to be you. They didn't want to be told how many firearms they could have. They didn't want to live under the constant threat of having those firearms confiscated. Because for the ones in remote areas, they were not only fighting wildlife with four-legged animals, a lot of the Native American population, whose territory was encroached on, weren't really keen on negotiating with words anymore. And without those firearms, you could lose your whole family. So the bottom line is we could go through chapter and verse. If you if you want to know the in-depth story, read the Declaration of Independence. Read the United States Constitution. Everything that we're for and against is in there. And that's what started the birth of an amazing nation. A nation that an awful lot of people try to come and live in every single year. We worked, our our forefathers, our ancestors worked really, really hard here. When the first settlers came from England, they had nothing. And through hard work and determination, the nation is what it is today, with all the creature comforts we could ask for. So I thought it would be interesting for a few minutes to reflect back to our bicentennial celebration in 1976. I remember it well. I was five years old. There was a parade that I have mentioned back in Memorial Day, the little city that my grandmother lived in. The parades were very similar. We just changed the banner in front. Happy Memorial Day, Happy Fourth of July, Happy Labor Day, Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. We didn't have an Easter parade. So those mechanics, you know, again, cookouts, swimming pools. Our family just got into everybody started to get window air conditioners because where we live, central air conditioning really wasn't a thing. So it was a big deal to be able to go in the swimming pool. And if it was still really hot, you went inside into one of the rooms that had an air conditioner and then you froze. And it was just a rite of passage. What great they were great memories. But for those that weren't alive, well, I think this is actually good if you were or you weren't, just to take a little trip down memory lane. In 1976, uh, for the 4th of July, our president was Gerald Ford. Uh, he was president until November when James Earle, i.e., Jimmy Carter, defeated him in his re-election bid. Um, the $2 bill with Thomas Jefferson's face on the front of it was reintroduced to commemorate the bicentennial. The space probe Viking 1 landed on the planet of Mars. That was the first time something from this planet landed on that planet. Um, Apple Computer started in 1976. Old Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak put their heads together and decided to change the direction of technology around the world. We had our first space shuttle named. Ironically, it was Enterprise. So for all you Star Trek fans, all of you Trekkies, it came to life in 1976. Peter Frampton released the legendary Frampton Comes Alive double album. And running parallel with that, ABBA achieved worldwide stardom with one of the all-time greatest utilitarian songs, Dancing Queen. Internationally, the highlight that year was the Antebbi raid in Uganda, where a flight that had a large number of Jewish passengers on it was hijacked by terrorists, and Israeli commandos landed in Entebi, Uganda, and rescued all of those hostages and got the vast majority of them back safely to Israel. Interesting fact in that raid, uh, the brother of President Netanyahu of Israel was killed. Um and that his efforts were heroic and instrumental in getting the vast majority of everybody home safely. To put things in perspective, a little cost comparison, the average cost of a new car in the United States was $5,450. The average cost of a gallon of gas was 84 cents. Price of a movie ticket was $2. A first class postage postage stamp to mail a letter was 13 cents. Those numbers are surreal to me. I think, wow, how much things have changed. And I think that leads us into the reflections on the holidays. There has been so much change in this country from 1976 until now in 2026. And how could there not be? We've talked before about technology being a force multiplier, knowledge management has exploded. Information is at our fingertips. Don't even have to go to the library for most of it anymore. And along with information and progress and technology, our perspectives changed, right? I mean, as a boy, I was five years old in 1976. And I couldn't I couldn't wait for the summer parties. I couldn't wait to be around my extended families. You know, I love them all. Couldn't wait to see my cousins that I looked up to. This was right smack in the middle of the disco age. All of my cousins would get gussied up Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, go out to the local discos. My cousin Matt had a beautiful Transam Firebird gold with the black bird on the hood. I love Fourth of July weekend because I cleaned up, I made money washing and waxing everybody's cars. Looking back, I probably did a terrible job, but they paid me and told me I did good. My cousin Joey had a beautiful SS Chevel Malibu. Absolutely beautiful car. My cousin Tommy had a Camaro. And it was so nice to see all of my older cousins get together, genuinely like and love each other. They're female, or depending, you know, male, significant others, all got along. And so as you get older, your your perspective changes on things, right? You have your own family, and it just seems that family get-togethers today, at least for me and my family and my clan, are much more difficult. There's there always seems to be some type of tension, no matter how hard folks work to get around it. It's difficult. And then I went away into the service and I went into combat zones, hot zones. And the bings and the bangs and the flashing lights, they bring out distant memories. The rocket's red glare isn't something out of a national anthem anymore. Sometimes those booms and pops, they can trigger you if you're not careful. And so, as a rule, I don't go to firework shows anymore. I try to spend the day and the evening with people I love, and I may turn the television on at night, turn the air conditioning on. I have animals and the fireworks, the loud noises, the explosions scare them. So I try to keep the AC units on high enough so that they don't get the domestic animals don't get freaked out. I feel very badly for the wild animals. More wild animals are killed on 4th of July celebrations than at any other time. And that, of course, brings accidents where people get hurt too. My point is the greatness of the nation doesn't. I have heard it said in my travels and people's homes that I work in as a handyman that we're headed towards a civil war. The United States is in worse shape than it's ever been in. I kind of have to struggle not to roll my eyes. They did so at great personal expense. If the revolutionaries in this country lost the war, every single one of them would have been hung as traitors. A good portion of the ones who signed the Declaration of Independence lost everything. They went bankrupt. A couple of them died penniless. But they did the right thing anyway. They believed it in their heart it was the right thing because it was about freedom. From 1861 to 1865, this nation went to war with itself again. And what was the intrinsic fundamental issue? Freedom. The folks on the Union side of the argument believed that human beings were human beings regardless. The folks on the Confederate side of the argument did not believe that. And believed that the accounting of people who were slaves should be discounted. A slave wasn't a real person. We went to war over it. And we healed. And we came back together. And we are a nation of one. There are times we are divided, politically, ideologically, along religious or spiritual lines. We're not going to agree on everything. And what a boring, horrible world it would be if we did. Going back to the beginning of this podcast, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, they were friends, but they didn't agree on a lot of stuff. That's why it took 48 hours to go from draft number one to final draft when it was hot and everybody was sweaty and there was no indoor plumbing to go take a shower and cool off. But they persevered. And their diligent efforts are still shining. The results of their diligent efforts are still shining 250 years later. Thank God they had the courage to do that. And thank God I'm still privileged to be broadcasting to you from the greatest country in the history of this planet. Now I don't want to get preachy and parochial. But if you're listening to this show, we're friends. I say that every week. And I'm going to ask you a favor as your friend. If you're going to celebrate, I'm asking that you please celebrate safely. If you're fortunate enough to have access to a boat or a jet ski out on that water, please, please, please put those personal flotation devices on. I know you're a great swimmer. I know that you are an amazing boat slash jet ski slash wave runner driver. I know you are an amazing water skier. I know all of these things, and I believe you. It's not you that I'm worried about. It's the folks who aren't as good as you that you're going to cross paths with out on that lake or that river that can hurt you. Fireworks displays are beautiful. It is truly an art. Please, my friends, leave the light off, the lighting off of these fireworks and explosive devices to the professionals. It's the stuff that goes boom, you know, people, oh yeah, we had M80s. For folks that don't realize this, that aren't necessarily from this country or from an M80 is a quarter stick of dynamite. They use dynamite to blow out mines and highway passes through mountain ranges. So imagine what it can do to body parts. It's nothing to fool around with. If you're a parent and you have kids that are going out, please have this discussion with them. I want all of you who are listening to come back and listen to the next episode. I don't want any casualties. So I'm going to say my prayers and ask that all of my podcast friends are safe. Please do your part to be safe. It's going to be a hot day in most of the places. Please put that sunscreen on. Protect yourselves. When it gets super hot, people consume the alcohol, tempers flare. Take that extra minute and make that extra effort to be kind. Look after yourselves. Look after each other. Pay particular attention, as you always do, to the folks that you love. Keep your head on a swivel. Enjoy the day. There's an awful lot of people who made sacrifices and continue to make sacrifices so that we can. We're coming to the end of the podcast. Thank you again for your time and your attention. Happy birthday to the United States of America. It was a privilege to serve you and the taxpayers who lived here. Be safe and be well, my friends. This is Mike, and I'm signing off.