July 2 is the 183rd day of the year. Fewer than 30 minutes from my clicking “publish” on this post, I’ll be half way to the end of the year. And it’ll be downhill from that point on.
Lordy me. I’ll be closer to next Christmas than I am to this last New Year, and I’ll recognize more and more, with every passing day–as I do every year–how foolish and short-sighted it was of me to take the bloody Tree down…
On July 2, 1776, Congress again took up the question of independence for a final vote. On this decisive day, only the delegation from New York voted to abstain. South Carolina and Pennsylvania reversed their decision from the day before and voted for independence. Caesar Rodney, the third Delaware delegate, who had not voted on July 1 traveled from Delaware to cast the deciding vote within the Delaware delegation. Rodney’s action added Delaware to the colonies in support of declaring America independent of Great Britain.
It was a day that John Adams, in a letter to his wife, Abigail, predicted would be celebrated by future generations as “the most memorable Epocha in the History of America,” one which would be commemorated on an annual basis by
…solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
Two days later, and after much to-and-fro over Thomas Jefferson’s draft, the final wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved and sent to John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer for publication and distribution.
Sometimes, we measure things that affect us in weeks or months, as with the annual taking down–and subsequent putting up–of my Christmas Tree. Once I get into the swing of things, I’m all-in; but sometimes the thought of all it entails, before I get started, is overwhelming, and I find myself–momentarily–wishing I’d bugged out months ago.
Sometimes, though, we should take the longer and broader view, when it comes to recognizing what’s really important when it comes struggling for what really matters–“our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”–and the survival of those ideas we hold foundational and immutable. We should all be “all-in,” “all-the-time,” for those.
Happy Birthday, United States of America! I’m starting the celebration now!
Where’s the whiskey? (To be clear, and in honor of my patrimony, I also have rather a lot of gin. So there’s that.)
