Forth of July

We just spent a couple of days down at the shore working on Malo.  That finished up on July 4th with fire works.  I have always celebrated the 4th of July, even when abroad, especially when abroad but this year felt different.  I still put out the flags, Malo’s boat flag and a little one that was left over from a road race that started in our marina parking lot, but I was defiantly feeling mixed emotions.  In my 63 years I have witnessed some significant high and low spots in our country.  Times that I have been extremely proud to be an American and other times not so much.  The high points that stand out are; passage of the Civil Rights Act, Americans walking on the moon, the fall of the Berlin wall and the rescue of Kuwait.  Some of the lows; the assassination of President Kennedy & Martin Luther King Jr., the Watergate scandal, the Whitewater investigation and the second invasion of Iraq.  The Vietnam war was both a great tragedy of human suffering and a great victory for the people of America who managed to put a halt to that catastrophe.  

Now we stand at another low water mark in our country’s history.  A time when our great land, that was built on civil discourse and tempered objectivity stands divided.  Bigotry, both racial and intellectual are on the rise, as is misogyny and other unsavory forms of prejudice.  Politically we are like two separate countries at ideological war with one another, at odds to an extreme that renders our government dysfunctional with no end in sight.  It is this dark night of America's soul that has me feeing conflicted about celebrating the 4th.  

As the day turned into night we considered staying to watch the barge launch fireworks from our boat in the marina but was warned by a neighbor about the atrocious traffic snarl that follows the show so we opted to show.  It didn’t start until 10:00pm and we still had two hours of driving in the best of conditions to get home.  When we got to the car Bev realized that she had forgotten her glasses so I waited while she went back to the boat.  When she got back to the car a few moments later she looked quite troubled.  “You can’t find your glasses?” I asked.  “No” she informed me, she had found them but was troubled by the fireworks that were being set off right next to our boat.  Bev said that she felt very nervous just stepping off the boat, having to time her departure with a lull in the pyrotechnics.  We had just installed over $6K worth of new canvas on the boat and the thought of what fireworks could do to it was troubling to the both of us.  So we headed back to the boat to assess the situation.  Fortunately by the time we got back they had moved the location where they were shooting off the fireworks one boat down the dock away from ours.  That was enough “breathing room” to give us a little piece of mind.  The ironic thing was that the guy's kids that were setting off the fireworks were off a boat that is owned but a fire safety inspector in town.  Funny but not in a ha-ha sort of way.  So we stayed and enjoyed the fireworks show out in the harbor.  



The surprising thing was that the "civilian" fireworks went several time higher than the commercial ones.  The real shocker happened when folks on the fishing dock next to our marina started shooting fireworks (barely) over the bridge.  You could plainly see the cars driving over the bridge plus all the people up there watching the barge show and those rockets from the warf were passing just a little bit over their heads.  Crazy.   America, I'm glad that some of us are still celebrating, I just hope we don't kill anyone or burn the place down in the process.   In the mean time I'm listening to understand my fellow Americans as much as possible and praying.  I've been praying for President Trump and our country to transit this dark time with the least amount of suffering and greatest amount of compassion possible and I invite any other kindred soles to join me in this.  The more the better.

Good night and good luck to us all...