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Happy 4th of July to everybody here in the US. A day for celebration with family and friends. Perhaps a cookout, or a picnic? Our brisket is in the smoker, guarded by our dogs, who successfully stole a few slices the last time we made one. Dogs don’t forget.
Such has been the patient sufferance…
We’re a mother’s bread, instant potatoes, milk at a checkout line. We’re her three children pleading for bubble gum and their father. We’re the three minutes she steals to page through a tabloid, needing to believe even stars’ lives are as joyful and bruised.
Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury…
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
– Words on the Liberty Bell
Around the middle of the 18th Century, the thirteen colonies which made up part of the English Empire in the New World, found it increasingly difficult to accept being ruled by a king sitting 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. They were tired of paying taxes but independence was only achieved step by step with painful effort. The inhabitants of the colonies could not forget that they owed allegiance to British citizens and to King George III.
July, the seventh month of the year, named by the Roman Senate in honor of Julius Caesar. Quintilis ‘fifth month’ in Latin, was his birth month, which represents where this month originally fell in the Roman calendar. It was renamed when Julius Caesar died.
I wish I could go around in my neighborhood and give out some brain. Some of our neighbors seem to be in desperate need of some increased thinking power. Wait, maybe they don’t require more brain but a user manual instead.
The 4th of July is just around the corner; there will be get-togethers, picknicks and BBQ’s. What do we provide to eat? What do we bring? I always try to offer a side salad, but somehow it never turns out right. How do you serve a salad for lots of people and make it look good for hours? I made a mixed salad and served it in a big bowl. It looked nice for a while until people started to dig in; tossing and turning, trying to get what they liked -leaving behind a mess that nobody wanted anymore.