Sacrifice

Saturday is the Fourth of July, the day that we celebrate our Independence from the British Empire.

Tomorrow morning my son and grandson will be driving down to Florida from Maryland. They will spend Friday night and Saturday morning with me and then they will pick up my son’s live-in girlfriend (actually he is a live-in boyfriend – it’s her place) at Tampa International.

They are spending the weekend in a motel, on the beach, at Treasure Island. There are much better pyrotechnical displays and a lot more things to do there than here in Nowheresville, Florida. I’m sure that he’s bringing his rods and reels and plans to do some fishing in while he is here.

He misses living in Florida and plans to move back some day.

Also on Friday morning my older daughter is driving from Maryland to Florida with her two boys to see the father of her children. She’ll be spending most of the summer here, so that the boys get some quality time with there father (he’s good with the boys, but bad for her). She said that she would see me next week.

Younger daughter is currently away from home, working on “legal stuff” for her maternal grandmother (AKA The Wicked Witch of the East) in Maryland, and will be arriving Saturday on the same flight as my son’s girlfriend. She’ll probably spend about a half hour or so with her brother at the Airport; before she returns home, and he, his son and girlfriend go to the beach.

Personally, I don’t really care to watch fireworks displays. But whenever I see fireworks I think about Francis Scott Keys words “the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.” And I’m reminded why we celebrate the Fourth of July as a National Holiday. We celebrate the sacrifices that were made for freedom and liberty from tyranny.

These sacrifices are still being made today, more than two hundred years later. And by those who will not be watching a pyrotechnics display, but the real thing, the “rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air”, in the Middle East.

On Saturday, I’ll be thinking about and saluting our troops that are currently sacrificing for us. I will stand each time I hear the National Anthem played and ask God to bless our troops (even though, I know, for a fact, that God doesn’t listen to me).

When I was a kid, I asked my Dad (a WWII vet) why we had to stand before the ballgame began. He told me “to honor our flag and those who gave their lives defending it and our country.” I have never forgotten this and will do so until the day I die.

Have a good Independence Day, but don’t forget why we celebrate this holiday.

The Beach Bum