Inde­pen­dence Day USA

Wel­come to the Fourth of July. For those of us who live here, it’s our national Inde­pen­dence Day in the USA where we cel­e­brate the found­ing of the nation. John Adams thought we’d be cel­e­brat­ing on July 2^nd, which only proves that nobody ever really knows what’s going to hap­pen even when they’re neck-​deep in the cre­ation of something.

Despite the fact that most of my read­ers are from the USA, I always like to write this annual post for peo­ple who may not be famil­iar with the way we cel­e­brate Inde­pen­dence Day in the USA. Here’s a short course on our behav­ior for the day.

• Gen­er­ally speak­ing, we don’t work. It’s a national hol­i­day. Some peo­ple will obvi­ously work, such as police offi­cers and gro­cery store clerks.
• Police offi­cers cel­e­brate the hol­i­day by pass­ing out a higher amount of traf­fic cita­tions. They call it a “crackdown.”
• The tra­di­tional meal con­sists of some form of charred ani­mal flesh. Many peo­ple call it a BBQ, but they’re just grilling.
• Peo­ple who truly under­stand BBQ will sneer at peo­ple who grill ham­burg­ers and think they’re cook­ing BBQ.
• There will be ample con­sump­tion of beer, ice cream and apple pie. We didn’t invent beer, but we did invent ice cream and we have plenty of apple tries. Besides, who doesn’t like pie?
• We will have parades.
• We will recite sto­ries of our his­tory that are fac­tu­ally inac­cu­rate, but still pop­u­lar to tell.
• In the evening, we will light explo­sives that rain fire upon our cities.
• Many peo­ple will wake up tomor­row and wish they had taken vaca­tion days for the rest of the week.

Mount Ver­non

Instead of flags and fire­works, I decided to share this photo of George Washington’s home at Mount Ver­non. Lit­tle did I know that the sun’s reflec­tion from my lens would cause it to burn a hole on the left side of the house. Sorry, George.