4th of July

For the National Holiday we gathered in the local stadium, where a proper celebration of Independence Day was organized. It all began with songs, that gave place to kids and non- kids jumping over ropes, themselves being replaced by songs. The audience had to choose between 4 songs, each of which had been selected by one of the coaches of the University, who all gave special meanings to their songs. For example there was this coach who had chosen a song about becoming an American, which was of course of special meaning to him, since he had “fled from Yugoslavia to go to the country of Freedom”. I have to say I was sitting between a Slovene and a Russian. The other coach selected “God bless America" (see here for example) and dedicated it “to all our guys who are in Irak and do a wonderful job over there”. The third one asked for “This land is my land” (click here for a modern version), the last one for the “Stripes and banner” anthem (the original, the best-known remix), sung by his 6-year old daughter. The song that got the most cheering from the crowd was to be sung entirely. This is democracy right? I mean, we shouldn’t forget that the US is the country that invented democracy, and spread it all over the world (especially to Greece). But as even in a Free country, elections can be biased, we had to stand the 6-year old girl. The show went on with the “World famous freesbee dogs” (what do you mean you don’t know them???), celebrities that were followed by a choir. Even the help of God, however thoroughly asked for in the songs, could not prevent the conductor to beat out of rhythm. A live buffalo, the local football team mascot, ran around the stadium and, last, someone read the “We, the people”, which nobody listened to, even if some parts of the text are very interesting. It all ended up with an endless firework. Very nice evening actually. We just had to go and gather some beer and drink them indoors, in the common area. This is not allowed of course. You should be in your room, with your door closed. But we were lucky and nobody showed up. I should add that, according to a poll shown on Fox News, July 4th is “a day to go in your garden and have a BBQ” for 44% of the Americans, and “a day to celebrate freedom” for 40% of the Americans. Does this mean that these 40% don’t have a garden?