Alaska, Day 2

I landed in Ohio on Wednesday afternoon and quickly learned on Thursday morning that the sun comes up early out here. 5:47AM to be exact. How do I know this? The light-filtering (not black-out) curtains in my room told me so. And in Florida, when the sun is just starting to come up at 6:20, I am getting up anyway. It works well. (and so do my black-out curtains that I have in FL) But in Ohio, where the sun is up until, no joke, 9:40 PM, things are different. It's almost like being in Alaska, where sometimes there no light at all, and other times, there's no darkness. Guess which time we're in now?! Yeah. It's summertime, aka the sun never sleeps! What's ironic is that in winter, you don't really see the sun, and on Christmas morning, even if the sun is 'out' it's so far away that you have to put on the Christmas tree lights and a lamp to see anything in the room. But back to our opposite, Alaska summer, problem. I sort of jokingly contemplated going to Target to buy a blindfold yesterday, but did not deem it necessary. Haha, said the rising sun. Guess what time I got up today? If you said 5:47, you'd be right. I shall stop by Target today after completing my 3 wedding-related appointments. I don't think I have normal appointments anymore. Am I meeting a non-family member somewhere? Definitely wedding-related.

Auditory Amusements

The wedding showers are next weekend, which means I'll be in Ohio soon. Many numerous sound-bytes have come of this affair. I shall share the best two.

My sister, upon learning we were having a shower in the first place:

"Unless a shower involves hot water and Kohler fixtures, I want nothing to do with it"

Mom, after many family members failed to RSVP to the shower.

"This is why God lets you pick your friends, because you can't pick your relatives! RSVP is French. Perhaps we need to change it to CMOIKYA (Call Me Or I'll Kick Your Ass)

Things that made me smile (so far) this week

• Remembering what flowers I chose for the wedding, and still loving them
• My mother reminding me to mail the wedding invitations later this month (did she really think I'd forget?)
• Getting $5 off the dry-cleaning for no apparent reason
• Receiving 3 free mini desserts at Carraba's
• Successfully saving a super tiny baby frog from the garage
• Enjoying tea and blueberry bread as a mid-morning snack
• Noticing, a week late, that I did not change my desk calendar to July

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing, let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning.... it's Independence Day

What July Fourth Means to Me, written by Ronald Reagan

For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.

I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures.

No later than the third of July – sometimes earlier – Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July.

I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker" – giant meaning it was about 4 inches long. But enough of nostalgia.

Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.

There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.

YAY for long weekends!

Fourth of July weekend is upon us. Last year we went to the Magic Kingdom and watched fireworks with more than 70,000 people. It was extremely fun and patriotic and I probably cried a little. It also took about 45 minutes to get out of the theme park! We are not doing that again.

We're going on a road trip! Off to Pompano Beach tomorrow to see fireworks and get out of Orlando. Fireworks on the beach might not have as all-american a backdrop as Magic Kingdom or the nation's capital in 2007 (see above) but it will more than suffice. Warmth, sand, fireworks, ice cream -there must be ice cream- and that special someone? Sounds good to me! I now leave you with a fun 4th of July quote, Alex Keaton style.

"Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.” -Ronald Reagan

Quality Quotables*

My mother sent me two fun quotes today in an e-mail. I have always been a big fan of quotes for various situations, and it inspired me to start a new posting topic (and category). Sometimes a good quote sums up a situation better than a blog entry, anyhow. And in honor of my mother, a quote from her that is also about her!

I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhoods and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met." Marguerite Duras, French writer

*Inspired by Jeopardy! category 'potent potables'

A for Effort?

You may recall we embarked on a movie watching challenge at the beginning of June. The goal was basically to watch as many movies as possible, so as to get a great value out of our Netflix subscription. In the past 30 days, we have watched eight films.... so an average of 2 per week. Not bad, but in no way something to write home about. Our plan was thwarted by the fact that we (mostly Michael) watched a million episodes of Heroes via the "Instant watch" queue. For most people this means watching movies and TV shows on the computer screen. And that used to be us. We started Heroes in the fall, instant-watching on the computer. But apparently that's not good enough for us anymore. When we got our Blu-Ray player earlier this year, Michael purchased the one with built-in Netflix, thus allowing all instant watch programing to come through the big screen. I was indifferent to the feature, but he was super-pumped. To wit: He has watched 30 episodes of Heroes via the instant watch feature just this month- And the month is not over yet!