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Happy Fourth of July to you and yours
I was tempted to start this column with a cheeky, “I’m back!,” but decided the holiday greeting was more appropriate given the circumstances. It’s my sincere pleasure to return for a second year as a community columnist, and I hope that our next year together will be even better than the last.
Today is Independence Day. Many readers will be with their friends and families eating hamburgers and hot dogs, gorging themselves on potato salad and good pie. Some will head down to Packard Park for one of our community’s best events – the fireworks.
Today, people will post on their Facebook pages things like, “Freedom isn’t free,” and other reminders of our many freedoms purchased so many years ago. Some will post pictures of their loved ones in the military, or write notes of thanks to military members around the country.
My note of thanks would be written to my grandfather, a Marine, who served our country when he was just a little younger than me. Grandpa, I’m so thankful for your service to our country – you have a lot to be proud of.
As a writer for a local newspaper and a blog or two, it struck me that I most often take for granted the freedom of speech I express when I write these columns. I have no need to wonder if this column will be rejected by a government-paid editor, or that I will be punished or persecuted for freely stating any of my opinions.
(Really, the most I have to fear is a reader who disagrees with me, and thankfully, you have all been quite gracious!)
The Fourth of July – typically a unifying event in our politically charged culture – comes just in time. This week’s Supreme Court decision in favor of Hobby Lobby and others has served to highlight the deep rift in our country that exists at the crossroads of free enterprise, religious liberty and abortion rights. This is just one of the issues and debates that moves so fast it can make your head spin.
So maybe my hope that a few brats and pies can act as a calming force on our nation’s anxiety. (And maybe this reveals that I’m an emotional eater.)
In a vastly diverse country that can express its opinions via a multitude of channels instantaneously, it’s nice to be given a few rituals – which is what holidays like the Fourth of July real are – to calm us down and call us back to a more level center, if not politically then emotionally.
As you celebrate today, as you watch fireworks and eat good food and play cornhole for hours, may your sweat and sunburn remind you of that more level center: that freedom was bought at a price for each of us, by brave people like my grandfather, who just did their best to serve when given the opportunity.
May you find this Fourth of July to be a clarifying time, in which you can once again cultivate the gratitude necessary to be a good member of the land of the free, the home of the brave.
Tennant is a resident of Warren. Readers can email him at editorial@tribtoday.com