Fourth of July: Reflecting Upon Our Lost Freedom

The Fourth of July is a holiday that Americans celebrate annually to commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence declared America’s freedom from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

As Americans, we often celebrate our freedom with fireworks, parades, barbecues, festivals, carnivals, picnics, concerts, baseball games, and other displays of jubilation.

As you celebrate America’s freedom this weekend, I want you to consider a particular freedom that we have lost… the freedom of just being free!

In my Toastmasters meeting today, my friend gave a speech that captured my attention and engaged my imagination as I thought back to my childhood. The poem read:

I remember summer days of running like the wind, and flying like a kite, and hopping like a frog after swimming like a fish.
I remember summer days of dancing like a butterfly, and laughing like a hyena, and hooting like an owl after stretching like a snake.
I remember summer days of rising like the sun, and glowing like the moon, and twinkling like the stars after sleeping like cat.

Do you remember those days? If you are older than 30 years old, I’d bet that you do.

I remember waking up very early in the morning, getting my chores out of the way as soon as possible so I could ‘hit the streets’. And by streets, I mean dirt road. And by dirt road, I mean Sweet Bay Road.

I would meet my cousins, Quette and Tisha, and we’d follow the green pastures wherever they led us. It was common for us not to see the face of an adult until we came back home, just in time for dinner, around six or seven o’clock in the evening.

Quette, Tisha, and I would find all kinds of mischief to get into: like going to the watermelon patch and busting open one watermelon after another, eating the sweet refreshing flesh with our hands, until our bellies could hold no more.

I remember traipsing through the green pastures mile after mile, in search of wild blackberries to make ‘wine’. Our cherished recipe consisted of smashed berries, water, sugar, and any remaining liquor we found in my granddaddy’s old discarded liquor bottles. We were ‘worldly’ enough to know that all good wine has to age. So we hid it for 30 whole minutes before we drank it heartily.

I can’t forget the time we decided to have a neighborhood clean up and walked the dusty dirty Sweet Bay Road picking up cans to sell the Peg Leg Cholley (Charlie). When Peg Leg Cholley drove down Sweet Bay Road in his beat-up station wagon, we flagged him down and ‘sold’ him our cans. We got just enough change for each of us to buy a soda. Just think: a whole day’s work for a Yoo-Hoo. The reward far outweighed the sacrifice.

How do children today spend their summers? They sit in the house all day playing video games instead of outside playing marbles or hopscotch. They wake up to go to the mall instead of waking up to do chores like hanging the laundry on the line or raking leaves from the yard. The chat and text, instead of yelling “Red rover, red rover, send Monkey right over.” They use their imaginations to figure out how to keep their parents from finding out their innocent texting is actually sexting; instead of using their imaginations to figure out how to get those wild grapes that are dangling from the top of that tree.

I said all that to say this: even though on the Fourth of July we are celebrating our freedom, there is one freedom that we no longer have: the freedom of just being free. The freedom of running like the wind, dancing like a butterfly, and twinkling like the stars.

No child today can go a whole day without hearing from his mother by phone or text. And no parent would dare allow hours to pass without knowing exactly where his child was.

There aren’t too many people today who can just get away for a few hours, just to chase butterflies with no other purpose in mind but to see where they are going. We are inundated with cell phones, texting, email, blogs, facebook, politics, and every other modern technology that makes complete anonymity impossible.

That’s pretty sad. Especially sad for the children. They will never know what real freedom is!