Trivia took too long to find. Here's a surprise essay instead

 

 

--Independence Day trivia: Name three US presidents who died on July 4. Two of them died on the same day in what year?

--What Vermont-born president was a real “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” having been born on the Fourth of July?

While “moving” stuff for the carpet layers, I discovered something I thought would be perfect for this week. It was written by someone who shall remain nameless, although I did get the author’s permission to use it. It was a high school assignment and garnered an “A/90,” which for this person who claims not to like to write, I thought was excellent.

                                                 MY DREAM FOR AMERICA

“America is such a wonderful place where people can come from all around the world to live, find work, and sometimes to just have fun. But I think that some things could improve just a little bit. We could use a little more peace. There could be more food for the starving families…, and we could stand to give just a little more money to the poor people.

“Whenever I talk about peace I don’t mean it as just not having war, I mean it as no murder, violence, burglary, and anything else like that; peace means love, harmony, happiness, caring, joy and nurturing. When America and the world has a little more peace, then it will be good for everyone. Also, if we want peace with the world, we must learn how not to fight instead of how to fight. [Here, the teacher wrote ‘good.’]

“Hunger in the world is a very important thing to fight. Did you know that when you eat, about ten children go without food? Thousands of people across America are starving because they cannot afford food for their families. I blame this on the fact that jobs [‘are’] becoming harder to find, and money is becoming harder to obtain. If I [‘were’] able to change this I would. I would help all the people find the jobs they need to make a living. That is one way to make America a better place.

“The last issue I want to bring up is the way lots of people are homeless, starving, [‘or’] without jobs, and that reason is poverty. Poverty has affected many people in America. It is causing people to starve because they don’t have enough money. It’s making people sick because they can’t afford to go to the doctor, and it is leaving people homeless. Poverty [‘my friend’] is basically a disease to America, a disease that we need to find a cure for. Please, please help us find that cure.

“So, in conclusion, [‘my friend’] America has its ups and its downs, and in my mind I think we need to fix the downs. Even though America is fun and an adventure to all, [‘please’] please help us make it an even better place than it already is today. Thank you for listening to my ideas.”

Amen and amen.  Have a happy Independence Day tomorrow.

A review of our nation’s history on this Independence Day

by Pat Laster

 

                I haven’t written anything to celebrate July 4 since that year a Son of the Confederate Soldiers organization wrote to all church music directors urging us not to use "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in our services.  Not that I “obeyed,” of course. For we had different ideas about the hymn.

                I decided that I needed a refresher course in the nation’s history as regards the celebration of the birth of our country. And perhaps you did, too. And though we now celebrate The Fourth, in 1776, it happened on The Second. Hear John Adams—in a letter to Abigail Adams dated 3 July 1776:

                “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.

                “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”

                Here’s Mary Antin, an immigrant, writing in The Promised Land, 1912: “So at last I was going to America! Really, really going, at last! The boundaries burst. The arch of heaven soared! A million suns shone out for every star. The winds rushed in from outer space, roaring in my ears, ‘America! America!’”

                And James Baldwin, from Notes of a Native Son, 1955: “The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and adopts the vesture of his adopted land.”

                Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme Court justice, wrote in “Whitney v. California” in 1927, “Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.”

                A Revolutionary leader, Abraham Clark, is supposed to have said in 1781, “We set out to oppose Tyranny in all its Strides, and I hope we shall persevere.”

                George M. Cohan, showman, said this to John McCabe in 1940: “From my earliest days I was profoundly impressed with the fact that I had  been born under the Stars and Stripes, and that has had a great deal to do with everything I have written.

“If it had not been for the glorious symbol of Independence, I might have fallen into the habit of writing problem plays, or romantic drama, or questionable farce. Yes, the American flag is in my heart, and it has done everything for me.”

The poet E. E. Cummings wrote in his “Next to of course God,” these two lines: “next to of course god America i/ Love you land of the pilgrims and so forth oh.”

Charles Dickens, English novelist said in American Notes, 1843: “There is no other country on earth which in so short a time has accomplished so much.”

“I name thee Old Glory,” William Driver said of the American flag as it was hoisted to the masthead of his brig in 1831.

In a Proclamation to the American people, 3 July 1976, President Gerald Ford said, “Break out the flag, strike up the band, light up the sky.”

[These quotations were taken from The Morrow Book of Quotations in American History, by Joseph R. Conlin, published in 1984, and were selected by myself. Since the entire book is available to be read online, I eschewed getting permission to reprint these.]

 Happy Independence Day, 2013.