My 4th of July Memories

I love the 4th of July.

In Park City, where I lived during high school, the Boy Scouts hold a fund raiser at the City Park. They make breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, melon, the works. It is a great place to run into people you haven't seen in a long time. The whole community comes out to support them. After the breakfast there is a parade down main street consisting of families with homemade floats, the fire truck, and high school cheerleaders to name a few. I always seem to run into my high school chemistry teacher at the parade. (I owe a lot to this man. He helped me develop a love for chemistry which I studied in college.) He asks me if I am ready to take over for him. I tell him no and I asked him if his new plastic knee can hold on for one more year. For this holiday, Park City not only fells like a small town, but like a real community. It didn't matter how hokey the floats may have been, it was just great to come all together. Later we BBQ and my dad watches the Boston Pops play the 1812 Overture. As the canons blast, his eyes well up. My dad is the most patriotic man I know. After it gets dark we watch the fireworks to the music on the local radio station while sitting on sleeping bags on the grass by the post office. I still can't listen to God Bless the USA without tearing up. For a day we come together to celebrate the great gift that is freedom, the right to choose. While my choices may be difference from yours, we can all be grateful that we can choose. I honor those that have defended this freedom and those that still do. I pray that I can honor the freedom given to me and preserve it for the next generation. I want to teach my children, as I was taught, to love this country and the freedom it gives us.