Well, it’s independence day again. My 2nd favorite day of the year. The sun’s out, kids running in thesprinklers, foot-long corn dogs, country music, American flags waving. Freemen, Free-women, Free people enjoying freedom.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it? When our founding fathers fought for ourindependence from England in the revolutionary war, what was their vision? If they could see what we have become would they be proud or disappointed? Well, at least on this day, in this moment I can look around me and see a free people sitting on their lawns listening to the music they decide, reading the newspaper of their choice, praying to their God before they devour the bar-b-que that they bought with money they earned from jobs that they chose. And when I look around and I see this, a smile grows on my face as I imagine it would on the faces those men over 200 years ago.

I drive down the road and see literally hundreds of beautiful red, white, and blue flags flapping in the warm Texas wind, some higher than a church steeple, proclaiming that not only after hundreds of artillery shells and bullets bombarded Ft. McHenry for 25 hrs, but after almost 200 years that our flag is still there!

Well… I tell you what. I had a great weekend. Started off by participating in 2 parades. One in Friendswood, the other in Nassau Bay in support of Pete Olson. He’s such a great guy, down-to-earth, and conservative. He will do a much better job as our congressman than Nick Lampson is. Everyone who showed up to help out was nice, and in good spirit. Heck, what better way to spend Independence Day than supporting a leader in our free nation.

After a stop a Pei Wei and a quick tour through First Baptist Church Pasadena’s 4th celebration; Arik, Sara, Lilly, and I headed out to Uptown to meet up with a couple of friends. We went the long way, taking a tour down Memorial drive just as the fireworks were going off at Tinsley Park… we were literally just across the bayou we could feel the heat as we rolled by at a snail’s pace. It was magnificent. Thousands of people, of all races and creeds gathered to celebrate our freedom by participating in one of our favorite pastimes.

When we finally arrived at uptown, we had a little Starbucks (which was packed), went over to Chachos (more packed), had some fajitas and margaritas. We had a blast talking about everything from mindmunity to politics (of course), relationships, religion, and much more. There truly is nothing like fellowshipping with our friends. I was in such a great mood. I feel so blessed to have the freedom to do that - eating Mexican food in America with a diverse group of friends talking about whatever we want in the wee hours of the morning. Then Sarah showed us what is to be the 1st Gentlemen’s Tonic in America. Seems like it will be an awesome place. Home and in bed by 2am…

So the 5th was great. We left early and headed down to the beach with Elizabeth, Cameron, and Nathan. An Irish Creme Monster Java or two complemented, quite nicely the red-dog laden carnivore of a customer who stood in line behind us at our pit stop on the way to Galveston. Upon arriving, Arik & I earned much-deserved blisters on our toes from a light jog up and down the beach, as the girls set up camp. A quick game of volleyball and we were off into the beautiful brown waves. Hunger upon us, we headed to the spot where we learned more about each other, fortifying old relationships and cultivating new. It was back to the beach for another game of VBall & a quick dip in the gulf with Waldo.

When we finally made it back home we gotall cleaned up (we jumped in the pool) and we headed over toBlock Buster (where the apparently now sell posters and prints to make up for their dieing revenues) to pick up their only copy of Boondock Saints. Checking out I noticed, much to my dismay, an issue of Rolling Stone with a picture of Barrack Hussein Obama on it. All squinty-eyed, this flag-lapel-laden, teflon candidate for president smiled (probably laughing a the propaganda-pushing, ignoramus who bought into his vacuous speeches and decided to waste a cover on him.) Anyway, so off to Arik & Lilian’s to watch the movie, ingest a delicious merlot (Vampire Vinyards), and youtube ’till we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

Our drive home was laced with singing and quoting from the movie and videos we had recently enjoyed, and the added in sarcastic reminiscing of the day’s events. Falling into bed with a sigh, I though -”how amazingly fortunate am I to be an American.”

Well that’s it. No story. No deep searching of my soul, bantering, or preaching from a soap-box… just a simple account of a weekend in my life where I didn’t worry, I didn’t get all caught up in the day-to-day… I simply enjoyed what means to be an American. Unencumbered, un-bothered, unafraid, and unashamed.