Happy Fourth of July 2005!!!!

It's the Fourth of July, it is 5:30AM breezy and 68 degrees outside. Been lying awake awhile listening to the wind blow through the trees and ignite into song the makeshift wind chimes I have hanging in my garden (a stick, string and tin coffee can lids), meant to distract and hopefully keep the critters away from the garden.

It is a very nice morning...made my coffee, so I am all set for now. What I need for mornings like this is a deck that I can go and sit on and relax as the birds begin to wake. I suppose I could sit on the front porch, small typical concrete on houses like mine that were built in 1952. I'd much prefer a deck in back with more privacy or a front porch like my grandfather's that stretched across the front of the house. Pillars on either side of the stairs to the sidewalk. I wonder what it would cost to have porch like that? And if I would need permits and zoning variances. Started getting light around 4AM, but the birds haven't broken into full song yet.

Today is the day to fly the flag. At least two houses on the street will have flags flying, Mrs. A and me. We keep ours up year round and replace them about once a year. Sad when you really think about it how few people really do fly the flag. When I think back to my childhood nearly half if not three-quarters of the houses on the street flew the flag on the Fourth of July, now we're lucky if a hand full fly it. To fly the flag on the Fourth of July or Flag Day or Veteran's Day is a sign of respect and appreciation for being who we are and living where we do. It is NOT political, though many would have you believe so and in essence attempt to have you believe that to fly the flag - means you support the current government's or the party in power's policies - whatever they are - and that could not be farther from the truth. To fly the flag is simply a way of saying Thank You for living where we do and enjoying the Freedoms we have and a way of conveying those thoughts and appreciation to our Men and Women in uniform that have helped to make it all possible.

Of course things were different 40 years ago, you knew who your neighbors were and the neighborhood was almost like an extended family. For the most part people respected each other, their beliefs, their heritage etc. Today we are all primarily isolated unto a world of ourselves, polarized over religion, politics, foreign affairs, etc. suspicious of change, suspicious of anyone different than ourselves. It is Red State vs. Blue State, Right Vs. Left, Ultra-conservative vs. Ultra-liberal, Republican vs. Democrat, heterosexual vs. homosexual, those who believe that our government should be guided by religious principles vs. those who do not, those who believe marals are something to be legislated vs. those who belive morals are an individual's choice.

Polarization has become the norm, the everyone for one's self syndrome I call it. Now we only truly know a few select neighbors, most likely those who we've know for years, the rest we politely wave to as we go by not knowing their names or much about them, only that they are our neighbors. Sadly that seems to be the way of todays fast paced world...and we lose something of ourselves, and of life in the process.