Been thinking about…Liberty in America

My puppy presses against me, snoring softly, even as a Sunday afternoon sun climbs steadily west. Between the fireworks and the thunderstorm, we all had a late night last night, bookended by a much earlier Saturday morning. Farmers Market Saturday always means an early morning, no matter the holiday, and I spent extra time on promotion this week to make sure people knew we would be open out at Vintage Paris Coffee.

“I just assumed you would close for the holiday,” a friend texted me. “We’ll only be closed if it’s Christmas or I’m dead,” I responded. For years I dreamed of being my own business owner. Now that I am, there is a certain deep-seated need to rise to the occasion. Plus, I was raised by World War II-era parents who never cut corners. Some things remain deeply ingrained. One works the job, not the hours, and you keep working until the job is done. Before market opened at 10 a.m., I ran back to the house (I had to put some meat in the freezer) and while there changed into my red-white-and-blue shirt so as to attract as much attention as possible (actually I just like the shirt but people look at me strangely if I wear it beyond patriotic holidays). I was not alone. A good chunk of our customers came decked out in the colors of the American flag.

I’ve always loved the Fourth of July. Our family tradition was to load up in the old red-and-white Ford pickup and drive down to the railroad tracks where we could pick ripe mulberries from the trees alongside the gravel road. From that far and out of the way spot, we could also watch the fireworks of our neighboring small town. We didn’t have special foods or celebrations for the day, just mulberries and distant fireworks.

Part of my American story is one of isolation. I grew up in Illinois but my grandparents and extended family were all far away. The close-knit life my mom had lived as a child — including Fourth of July spent with cousins riding carnival rides and watching fireworks together in a town in which everyone knew everyone else — was just something in her stories of the past. For a lot of us Americans growing up in the second half of the 20th century, we were all from somewhere else, our parents having migrated for the job, even if that meant living many hours and many miles away from any other family. The rootlessness of that space gave me a strange need to know the past, and to seek belonging.

Still, there is freedom in rootlessness and the open road, a sense that anything is possible when not necessarily bound by past or tradition or claustrophobic expectation.

The afternoon heat closed in as we closed Saturday market and the clock ticked closer and closer to five. I still had not decided how to celebrate Independence Day, having been mostly focused on just getting another successful farmers market under my belt. I’d already drunk close to a gallon of water but it clearly wasn’t enough and pouring cherry cola over my espresso may not have been the best idea after all. Holiday goals? Make it home, do the books, take care of the dogs. Social media is enabling but also hangs a heavy burden around our necks — an expectation that we are supposed to do certain things a certain way. I’m a patriotic man. I “should” celebrate in a particular way.

“We have freedom,” a friend told me. “You’re free to celebrate in any way you want.” The words echoed. I changed into my gym clothes and headed to lift weights. Then to the grocery store to buy my own weird choice of holiday treats — Bing cherries, frozen orange juice concentrate (which I eat, still frozen, with a spoon), and cottage cheese (just to remind myself I’m a responsible adult) — along with dark beer and a Red Baron pizza. After, I walked the dogs amid a cloud of mosquitos and watched the dogs occasionally flinch as mortar shells exploded overhead. It was hot, it was humid, it was miserable, but I loved it. Summer in America, and for a moment, time stood still.

Freedom comes in many forms. But now, as America celebrates 250 years and a day, I light a candle for those who are not here — but should be — and roll up my sleeves. Celebrations are fun, but the real work is yet ahead.