I Like To Be In America

“I like to be in America…” Our friend Maryse is visiting us from France, and as you can see by her radiant smile, even though she doesn’t know the song, she likes to be in America.

“Ok by me in America…” It seems to her that anything is startlingly possible here, whereas we take it for granted that we live in the land of free to be you and me.  It’s not easy being green?  Just be blue.

“Everything’s free in America…” including these mini-doughnut samples at the Bainbridge Island 4th of July Fair.

“For a small fee in America” although here, today, the proceeds of whatever was for sale often went to good causes.

It’s an essential part of visiting America in summertime, the 4th of July parties.  A delightfully homey small town celebration with dogs and kids in the parade and funny costumes everywhere you looked? Tant mieux, so much the better.

Cruising the fair before the parade started, we saw adorable-looking people we’ve never seen before,

and truly adorable people that we haven’t seen in ages, like local lovelies Jeannie and Anne.

We saw candidates for Best 4th of July Costume,

and Best Dressed Overall.  Not that there was really a contest going on, but personally, if I had one costume to choose that exemplified the spirit of this holiday, it would have been this cool tee shirt.

Overall it was a thoughtful fair, with booths advocating a better world for humans,

for animals, including Athena the Barred Owl,

and even collecting a taste of home for those serving overseas.

It was a hot, hot day and we were all roasting,

but the parade lifted our wilting spirits with cool music from the decidedly rock end of the Bach to Rock spectrum,

an unexpected level of diversity,

and schoolkids performing their hearts out on the burning pavement.  There’s really nothing more one could ask for, but we still have dinner and fireworks to come.  Do we deserve this bounty?

To my way of thinking, we’ve finally got the President we’ve been waiting for and desperately need, the country is getting back on track, and we deserve a huge round of applause for showing the world who we really are.  I don’t know about you, but me, I like to be in America!

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