05 July 2022

Spend your Fifth of July in style (Independence Day Essay)

Dear reader,

(Just to be clear, I stole the title as well as the body of this blog post from an email that I received from my realtor.) 

Are you ready for some summer fun? May your July 5 celebrations include memories to last a lifetime! If you’re interested in feeling like you own a lakeshore paradise with its own recreational haven and grilling utopia, read my new 9-part Independence Day essay: 

Independence Day

Well, it’s July Fourth – ay me, look at all the fireflies blasting around in heaven! 

Part 1:
Introduction

The Fourth of July holiday occurs annually on July Forth. The country celebrates by blowing up colorful fireworks. “Dynamite pyrotechnica!” one woman shouts. There are also firecrackers. “Boom kapow” is the sound they make — it is loud, not soft. These celebratory effects are intended to mimic the noises made by guns and bombs. Since both fireworks and firecrackers are illegal to buy, sell, or possess within the contiguous United States, one must cross the border into either Mexico or Canada to get them and then sneak them back in.

This is a mirthful holiday, because large parades march down the main road of every village. The only way that one can feel sad on this day is if one has been scheduled to work during the festivities.

Notice how many people are holding and waving U.S. flags. Many attendees of the parade are Foreign-War Veterans, who are moved to varying degrees by this display of patriotism. The colors of the U.S. flag are red, white, and blue; and its shapes are stars and stripes.

Would you like to go eat some watermelon? I found a place nearby that is selling fresh slices.

After dining, we climb on the roof of our car to view the fireworks. When they begin, you gasp and say: “Wow, that’s spectacular; it reminds me of the fight for freedom.” We sit here for hours, beholding the starry night and thinking about war machines and their weaponry.

Part 2:
Bottle Rockets

Here is a fun activity to do: Go out to the corner store and buy a two-liter bottle of soda pop. Drink it fast. Now take the empty plastic container that held the beverage and set it on the ground before you. Insert one M-80 firecracker into the bottle. Light the fuse, and watch your rocket shoot into the sky. See it zigzag to & fro & up & down. Pray that it does not whiz past somebody’s hair, or veer off in the direction of the local mall – this could startle the shoppers. As a precaution, make sure that you’re wearing rubber boots.

The following is a suggested spell to chant while your projectile is airborne:

Boom…pow…blast…klang…

Bottle rocket, do your thang!

It bears repeating that your bottle rocket should try to avoid hitting someone’s waterbed. You should never shoot fireworks at anything except thin air. Note also that the firepower of the rocket will blacken the atmosphere, making it difficult to see what’s going wrong.

One time, a bottle rocket landed right on the saddle of a horse. And one rocket put a dent in your father’s car.

If you see children aiming a rocket launcher at someone’s house, step over to block the shot with your body and say: “Do not do this. You might break the windows or blow out some walls. If you’re not careful, you could even end up firing a torpedo right into your own face. Instead, obey the safety rules.”

Elderly people tend to be afraid of rockets, due to the loud noise that explosives make when they detonate. Young kids also fear projectile weapons, because they dislike dying – look how they tremble at the thought, while covering their eyes and holding their breath. Consider how tragic it would be, if a small child were to ride on a bike and then one of its tires was to get hit by a missile.

Imagine hearing a responsible adult declare: “I love shooting rockets – that’s how I lost my hand.”

Part 3: Parades,
Analyzed in More Specific Detail

As we established above, you and I both enjoy attending parades. But let’s focus closer on what makes July-Fourth parades so special and sets them above the common herd.

First, the people in these parades walk in a measured way. They also wave flags. You can’t beat that. Plus a band marches after them while playing patriotic tunes. They have brass instruments, woodwinds and drums. We spectators are saluting. Soon a float appears whose occupants begin to throw candy to us viewers on the sidelines. We dash forward to grab as many of these free treats as possible. I begin to eat mine immediately; you choose to save yours in a plastic cup. If a piece of candy that is tossed happens to fall in the dirt, this poses no problem: for each candy has a protective wrapper covering it. But even if the candy had no wrapper, you could simply wipe off the soiled area – then, it would be safe to eat.

Some of the people in the parade are riding horses. It is only natural for these horses occasionally to excrete waste upon the road.

Here come the Local Community Firefighters: they are riding their Great Red Engine. They turn on the siren – it is deafening. You appear frightened, so I shout to them over the blare: “Please move along, now – you are terrifying my friend.” The Firemen give us a friendly nod of acknowledgement and then pace forward.

Next in the procession is a group of young females who, according to the banner that they are holding, belong to “The Girl Scouts of America”. They wave to the bystanders as they march past, and some of them unknowingly step in the horse-poop.

The parade is nearly over. All that’s left are two more marching bands, and then the grand finale: a glittery float that holds the winner of the Miss Wisconsin contest. She occupies the topmost pedestal and is flanked by Mother Mary and Saint Jerome.

Part 4:
Why We Celebrate

In this section, I shall explain why humans celebrate July Fourth.

All the festivities of Independence Day share the same purpose: to remember the pilgrims. Are you one of the many individuals who associates leprechauns with the color green, and who thinks of four-leaf clovers when a certain phrase is whispered in your ear? Then consider what the British Armed Forces mean to us young Americans. Until we fought them off, we had no place to form our country. (David Bowie, despite having died, is still afraid of us!)

The style of government that our forefathers chose to implement may appear strange, at first glance; but it is the best system, as it’s the only one that we permit to exist. It derives from the idea of friendly swindling. “I’ll trade you this chair for that pack of gum,” one senator might say to another, and the exchange rate would hold firm. But if the trade occurred between soldiers from opposing countries, then the treaty could only be considered legitimate after the mutual enemies shout in tandem the mantra: “Let us now return to warring against each other.”

What either nation wanted most was independence from King George H. W. the First.

(As a bonus, back then, Boston tea was very high in quality – you couldn’t spill some without instantly regretting it.)

So, once the original earthlings gained independence, the Great War died. “Take that: POW!” yelled civilization, while thrusting its musket. Then the people who had been living peacefully on the land before as well as throughout these battles stepped forth & declared, with open arms: “Welcome, newcomers.” The earthlings replied by slaughtering these aliens; but only after abusing them in every way. Thus, by slaying all prior invaders, the rightful earthlings established ownership of the New World.

Part 5:
Will Smith Movies

Here is a relatively unknown fact, which you may not have noticed. Every year, the actor Will Smith stars in at least one motion picture that performs very well at the box office during the weekend of July 4th. For instance, the movie Independence Day (1996); or Men in Black (1997). These are just two of countless examples. I could also have mentioned Enemy of the State (1998) or Wild Wild West (1999).

The man is smart: by making this power-move within the hierarchy of cinema, Will Smith has merged his identity with America Itself — or, rather: Amerigo Himself. Yes, if the sword-wielding Columbia is the USA’s official goddess, then Will Smith certainly personifies its Lord GOD.

Part 6:
Sparkler Sticks

Now let’s say that you accept my invitation to play with fireworks. Would you prefer that we begin with a type that is safe or unsafe? You answer: “Safety first.” OK – wise choice. The safest weapon known to man is called the sparkler stick. This pyrotechnology is so gentle, even children can wield it. The dictionary defines a sparkler stick like so:

a wire saber resembling a corndog marsh plant with a long, slender, velvety, cylindrical head that discharges sparkles when ignited.

As the name suggests, sparkler sticks sputter and spit sparks. But these blazes are like hellfire, in that they contain no heat – so they cannot cause harm. And here’s the proof:

My best friend in childhood was Joe Murphy. When Joe was about 3 to 6 years old, his parents left home to shop at the Mall of America. As soon as Joe saw that his mom and dad were gone, he lit up a sparkler stick and tried to burn down the house – but nothing caught fire, because this weapon that he chose was harmless. Then Joe tried to melt the glass eye of his teddy bear, but the sparkler stick only tickled the stuffed bear’s retina (scientists think that it might have actually slightly improved the bear’s vision). Finally, Joe returned to his bedroom and stood before the large poster of Samantha Fox on the wall. He pressed the sparkler stick onto the glossy paper, but it left not even a singe-mark on the model’s bathing suit. So then he gave up and opted to become a good kid. (To this day, Joe remains a very nice person.)

The only items that sparkler sticks have ever been able to destroy are jelly-filled pastries that were intention­ally shaped like road-kill (wild animals that died from being hit by motorized vehicles on the highway). After locating the place where the tasty filling was injected, if you light up a sparkler stick and gently insert it, the treat will explode. Therefore, always be sure that your kids are supervised.

Part 7:
Vacation Time

July Fourth is the time of year to pack your bags and listen to my advice. Here’s my advice: Vacate your home. Emigrate to Italy. Purchase a cabin. Unlock its treasure chest. Stash your luggage. Now rent a car and drive away.

Independence Day is all about traveling. Stop your daily grind, take a deep breath, meditate for a bit, then acquire some freedom and go to the lake. Wherever you’re at, just recline. Drop everything. Your ances­tors beat the British, now it’s chill time: sort of like an intermission before the Russians and Chinese arrive for dinner, later this evening. When you all are finished eating the roast duck, and the wineskins are empty, you can lock arms and watch the fireworks. Go somewhere nice. Do this now.

Here’s another helpful hint: Some of your friends from high school probably own deeds to properties that you can take legal possession of. Get yourself exhausted by chopping wood all afternoon, then you’ll sleep like a baby on your cot. It’s already almost 5 o’clock, and the clubs open at 10. You’ll need to shower. Then the glam starts.

On the morrow, walk home. The sun is way down low upon the horizon, now. It’s eerie. You’ve been travel­ing all day, and you have another few hours to go. Before collapsing in a heap on the doorstep of your destination, once you arrive, take your high school friends out to dinner with your new business partners, Russia and China, and deliver your big report about how satisfactory you found the lodgings in the cabin you bought. Ask everyone if they will please agree to change their ethnicity to match yours; then unlock the treasure chest and hand out prizes.

Part 8:
Local Happenings

Each city-state of the globe will have its own way of celebrating July Fourth. Here in Hyperborea, we have a fun festival called “Suck the Freeze”. What happens is that fifty million people show up in the parking lot. Each participant breaks off an icicle from the snow-scape and begins to mouth it. Then a big bus, which is like a canopied sled on wheels, stops in the middle of the lot, and everyone climbs aboard: there are men with tattoos, smelly people, folks who cuss, kids on drugs, girls with their boyfriends, and low-budget entertainers. The bus begins to roll forward, and a vendor appears offering hotdogs served with warm water.

Every shirtless and barefoot person is welcome to participate in this event.

Part Last:
Overdosing

The members of the board now ask me to wrap things up: “Come to your conclusion,” they say. “What is the ultimate value of July Fourth?” My answer is this:

Let us drink booze and get wasted. Here is some tequila for all of the board members. Any holiday is better when you’re plowed — that’s your corporation’s motto. Although I myself prefer consuming respon­sibly and partaking in moderation, I will not punish anyone who decides to binge-drink to death. That’s between you and your Creditors. All I’m going to do is make sure that your corpse doesn’t block the aisle of the Freedom Bus. I might have to nudge it out of the way with the sole of my boot; but I’ll try to be respectful.

[Here ends “Independence Day.”]


No comments:

Blog Archive