July 4, 2024-a final goodbye

This was my 7th --and last time-- organizing July 4th for The Town Center Project.  Next year, someone else will recruit the readers, singers, poets and borrow the sound equipment from Parks & Rec.

For me, July 4 is about THE IDEA of America. The values represented by "We the People”:  Liberty, Equality, Justice for ALL.  

 Right now, our world feels crazy, dangerous. It's easy to feel despair-- to give up, to withdraw--to turn your back on your fellow citizens, to allow hate speech or lies to flourish and not say anything.  

 Don't do that. We are ALL so lucky to live in America!

As the only American-born daughter of refugees from Hitler's onslaught in Europe, America was the "City on the Hill," the place that took my family in, that saved our lives.

If not for America, my father, my sisters, my mother, and me-- in her belly--would have become just 5 more added to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. 

83 years later, America today is a very different place. But we are still in search of that, "More perfect union."

Today is about the promise of what we can be. Yes, we fall short of our ideals, but we pick ourselves up and try again. And again.

I choose to believe that America’s best days are to come. and I, for one, am grateful that I’m not in Gaza, or Ukraine, Iran or Sudan, or any of the other places in the world that face civil war, famine, earthquakes, and devastating disease.

Have a wonderful holiday.