What is it about the Boston Pops on the Fourth of July? They play their singalong and I sit in my chair singing at the top of my lungs and tears are rolling down my cheeks. Is it the memory of those songs learned in grade school, taught by nuns with thick Italian accents, whose goal it was to make us worthy of the country our parents and grandparents had adopted? Was it the memory of those who gave their lives so this country could continue to exist? Was it Fess Parker in a coonskin cap or Little Joe Cartwright on the Ponderosa? I don’t know. But for one night a year, damned the politics and the international issues and the wars and the budgets and the economy. For one night a year we can celebrate all that being an American means no matter what. We make mistakes, sure. We tend to be a bit full of ourselves sometimes, sure. And sometimes we seem to veer so far off course that the miracle is that we find our way back. But we have given this world an example of how democracy can really work. The great success of our grand and brave experiment with democracy has given the rest of the world the blue print they look to for what is possible. And even at its most dysfunctional, it’s still better than any alternative.
It’s either that, or the margaritas got to me.