New England has four seasons. Mud, Fourth of July, Fall, and Christmas. This past Thursday was Independence Day. The peak of summer. When Americans celebrate ratification of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Which established these United States. A thing which is often in your thoughts, when you live in one of the original thirteen colonies. Among historic landmarks and everyday buildings that are older than this country. It is a day when everyone gets on our same page.
Not that I grew up here, being from Iowa, which is neither a young nor old state. Only twenty years older than the house I live in. I grew up in the Valley Junction neighborhood of West Des Moines. Which was home to rail switching yards for the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific railroads in the 1890's. Itself old by Iowa standards. Spending fourths watching parades down Vine Street and fireworks down on the levee.
But the best were the small-town Fourth of Julys. I grew up in the suburbs. But my stepfather is from a little town called Gowrie, Iowa about 90 minutes north of Des Moines in Webster County. A thousand people set out in the middle of a farm field. His entire extended family would gather for an annual family golf tournament on the little rural course. There would be a parade down main street in the morning, a carnival all day, then fireworks out over the corn fields at night.
They gave us kids $20 apiece and the run of the town. Which I was aware was a lot of money for our family in the early 90's. We had that freedom because there was family everywhere, and everyone in town knew the family, and because it was a safe time and place to be a child. If you really needed your parents, it was two miles from the carnival in the center of town to the course out on the edge of it.
We made sure to never need them though. As small as Gowrie is there is a town swimming pool, where you could go if it was too hot out. But I tried to avoid it as it meant carrying my wet suit around. Or walking all the way back to the house to hang it out somewhere. Time seemed too precious. You knew the clock was ticking on this freedom. You did not want to waste any of it.
I did not go for a few years when I got older. I am not sure what I thought was more important. Or that I was too busy, or too cool. But when I began coming back for the fourth it was with my son. I remember one year he was 5. Too young to turn loose. But he rode with one of the cousins all day who let him drive the cart, bought him sodas from the cart girl, and peed on a bush with him to show him it was ok to go outside. All of us talked about that day for years.
Grandpa would have got a kick out of that. But he had died a few years before. Most of the family elders were starting to follow suit. The family does not meet in Gowrie anymore. Though the golf tournament still happens out in western Iowa. At a place which is more convenient to those who remain. My parents still host my aunts and uncles and some of the cousins each Fourth. My son is a chef now and was there to help feed everyone this year.
I was not there. I had some feelings about that. But I knew when I moved to New England that I would miss out on some things. Still, it got me thinking about America. About freedom, independence, and rugged individualism and how we get them twisted. Freedom is the power to act without interference. Not to act any way we want to. Independence is not being subject to the control of others. Not having no self-control. Rugged individualism is not being reliant on the state or on society. Not being un-reliant on God, family, and community.
The prevailing discourse about how we should live, and what we owe to one another, is an argument between failed ideologies of the past. Over whose bad ideas should get another chance. But we can change the conversation by taking it out of the public square. Back to around dinner tables and at the corner bar. Refusing to see each other as identity groups and political affiliations. And being friends and neighbors who treat each other well more than one day a year.
Great thoughts! I love the second to last paragraph. Just what I was thinking about yesterday. Thanks for sharing your words