Column: :Marking Time
I once promised myself I would never write a “what I did on my summer vacation” column. But I made that statement before I had driven 1,944 round-trip miles in 95-degree heat to Mt. Rushmore for the highly acclaimed Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza over the granite heads of the presidents — something my family has been planning for, gosh, almost a year — only to have the fireworks canceled due to fire danger. So, I broke my vow and present some random thoughts that made their way into my heat-and-caffeine-saturated brain while driving this past week:
Random Thought 1: A blind man could see that patriotism is running at an all-time high. Red, white and blue is off the chart. At Rushmore, a pre-sunset patriotic program was presented to fill the time of tens of thousands of visitors who were awaiting a weak, last-minute-substituted laser light show. The band from a nearby Air Force base started into a rendition of “God Bless America.” Next thing I know, everyone is standing. I look confused. My wife jabs me in the shoulder, spilling the bottled water I am pouring over my baked head. I tell her it’s not the national anthem and standing is optional, but it is soon apparent that I am the only one still down and soon I’m up, too. An hour later, a local artist — 12-year-old girl with karaoke machine — starts into “I’m Proud to be an American,” and, again, masses stand, some with hand on heart. “It’s not Francis Scott Key. It’s Lee Greenwood,” I mumble while shuffling my Uno cards, but thousands are already standing and belting it out, tears in eyes, right along with the brave little girl. Heck, if this war on terrorism starts taking a downturn, don’t send the regular army. Don’t send the national guard, just ship over a couple busloads of regular Americans with polo shirts and sandals, and let them wring some necks. I really believe the average American is no longer average when it comes to this issue. Americans have stepped up the plate. Random Thought 2: We stopped at the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn. We felt that ripple of reverence, similar to what I’ve heard permeates Gettysburg and other scenes of battles and death. This spawned a discussion with my 14-year-old on how did this happen and Manifest Destiny and why we don’t have monuments for the scores of battles where the Native Americans lost. The bottom line: We probably couldn’t get away with the steamroller mentality of everything from sea to shining sea belonging to the Great White Father today.
Random Thought 3: You can usually count on food being great at any place called Bubba’s.
Random Thought 4: I’ve never undertaken a study of the Eisenhower administration but it would seem that finest thing to come from Ike’s turn at the top was the interstate highway system. Someone had some great foresight to undertake the project. Imagine driving through some god-forsaken pl ….. oops, er, ah, through Wyoming without the interstate highway. State highways and scenic byways have their place, but I said many a prayer of thanks to old Ike.
Thought 5: When your wife tells you she really is tired of listening to bluegrass on the CD player, you better listen.
Thought 6: We are a celebrating people … and that is a fact we should celebrate. We need to celebrate the Fourth of July. We need to celebrate by waving flags and waving sparklers. We need to celebrate with parades and John Phillip Sousa marches and by eating watermelon until we hurt. We should celebrate by standing, by honoring vets and POWs and uniforms and those in them. We should celebrate the Constitution and rights to speak and argue and worship. We should celebrate every word in the Declaration of Independence. We should celebrate being Americans.
We should celebrate the 24th of July. We should have family reunions and softball games and Dutch oven potatoes. We should celebrate by telling pioneer stories and swapping genealogy and recipes for apple cobbler. We should celebrate with kids pulling wagons decorated like covered wagons, by donning long dresses and bonnets and by digging out photos of great-grandparents and by getting all teary-eyed. We should sleep in a tent, drive across a scenic mountain pass, hike down Zion Narrows, all the while being thankful that some folks had the guts and inspiration to march west and find this place. We should celebrate Onion Days and Strawberry Days and Peach Days and Raspberry Days and Mosquito Days and days with slow, purple-and-orange sunsets. We should celebrate being Utahns.
Fireworks, it seems, are not essential to a good celebration.