What does 4th of July mean to me?

I saw some articles the other day about how there are a certain political demographic in this country that feel as though the 4th of July should not be celebrated because it is racist, homophobic, or something.... I dunno, the usual whining about just about anything that they never-to-be-pleased people constantly complain about.

I spent most of my life really looking forward to this holiday and while my enthusiasm has died down the older I get because I do not have children, I still look forward to it to some degree. All of my staff get the extra day off and I would never infringe upon this even though we are VERY busy right now and honestly, it would do us a whole lotta good if we were just to go to work.

For me, I don't really consider the 4th of July to be a fantastic important historical date but I do like the fact that it exists and there are some really, not even remotely patriotic reasons why that is the case.

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Almost everyone has the day off

Unless you work for emergency services and in most cases even if you do, there is a really good chance that you get the day off of work. While this year the 4th fell on a Monday there have been times in the past where the date gets moved so that everyone can have a 3-day weekend. For me and my group of friends, we actually had our party on Sunday so that my entire crew isn't totally useless and bogged up with hangovers on the next time I see them at work. Of course I don't tell anyone that they can't do it but let's just say that from a decade of experience that the productivity on the 5th tends to be a little less than stellar.

When everyone gets an additional day off of work, it is really easy to organize huge parties and that is exactly what happened at many different places all over our community this weekend. Huge BBQ's with tons of beer and at some of them, even a designated driver was in place - yeah, rednecks don't like to drunk drive either, if you can believe that.

big BBQ parties

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It doesn't really matter to me if you love this country or not. I've always found over-the-top patriotism to be a bit silly no matter what country you are from. Regardless of how you feel about our nation's history, unless you are a vegan there is probably a very good chance that you are going to be excited by the excess that this holiday brings with it. Brats, hot dogs, burgers, steaks, chicken, ribs, we had it all. Also the people with the best grills like to bring them over to show off and that is just fine by me because it means I don't have to do anything. I prefer to just sit and talk and drink beer so if someone else wants to haul over their $3000 Weber grill they are more than welcome to do so.

Fireworks

Who doesn't like fireworks? I grew up in a place and time where it didn't matter how old you were, if you had $20 to spend you were going to walk away with a ton of essentially explosives. Things have changed a lot now in that you have to show ID and the types of fireworks available are far less deadly than they were back in the 80's. They are still a lot of fun though.

For the most part the main excitement of the day comes at the expense of the city and even though we are 10 miles or so from the municipal park, we can still see and hear them from my property.

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In New Bern they fire them off over the waterway and I don't know how much they spend on this but it is probably a lot. Many years ago some friends and myself pitched in for a professional fireworks display and were kind of shocked at how little more than $1000 got us. It was something along the lines of 40 seconds worth of a show and that was on the one and only time that we did that. I think it is better to leave it up to the city although I am not really a fan of the fact that the money used for that was taken from all of us in the form of taxes.

For me and most of the people I know the 4th of July isn't a "USA is number 1!" type of holiday but just a chance to get together with friends and have a good time. It is kind of bothersome, but not surprising to me, that there are certain people out there that will try to ruin the good times of others over really anything they can find. I think if these same people were to just live and let live and stop trying to find so much to be angry about all the time, then everyone could enjoy the 4th of July, or really any other holiday for that matter.

Happy 4th.... however it is that you choose to celebrate or not celebrate it. Hell, even if you don't like the holiday at all there is a really good chance that you probably enjoyed not going to work :)