Another Day in the Country
We the people
© Another Day in the Country
It’s been a quiet week in Ramona, my hometown. It was rain, rain, rain, which left me feeling as if I was quarantined in the house.
Then it became wind, wind, wind, with about the same outcome.
Somewhere in between nature’s whims, farmers have been harvesting. I’m not sure when or how, but I see contents of fields changing.
I found fresh apricots at the food store and brought a few home.
My sister’s favorite breakfast when she was a child was something she called “cottons.” My mother would fix fruit toast for breakfast. When Jess came along, apricot fruit toast became a constant.
Mom canned apricots every summer in anticipation of all the pureed apricots on toast she’d feed her youngest during the winter. They had to be pureed. Skins made Jessica gag. They had to be on buttered toast, I discovered this morning, when I decided to fix the long-beloved food for the weekly Sunday morning breakfast we share. I’m sure it’s been 20 or 30 years since we’ve had apricot fruit toast.
While I thickened the apricots, I wondered whether cream cheese wouldn’t be good instead of butter. I poured apricots over cream cheese and served it. It wasn’t until Jess took her second piece of toast, slathered it with butter, and poured the apricots puree over it she sighed with pleasure.
“There’s the taste I remember,” she said, smiling.
It’s the flavor of butter with those ripe apricots.
Our Sunday custom is to eat breakfast and then watch “Sunday Morning.”
Since we are getting close to the Fourth of July, the official birthday of country, there was a lot of information about the 250th celebration on the news.
One commentator asked a lady whose expertise is focused solely on the Declaration of Independence what she thought individuals ought to do to celebrate July 4 this year.
“Every single American should read the Declaration of Independence out loud,” she said.
I went looking for the document in the National Archives.
As I read the entire document, the realization dawned on me that I’d never in my entire life read the whole document that declared this country’s independence from the king of England.
You’d be blind not to notice that some of the grievances cited are being practiced once again in our nation’s capital, where havoc can be wreaked on anyone who dares disagree with current leadership.
Remembering the expert’s suggestion not just to peruse but to read it out loud, I read it to my sister as we drove to a gym in Abilene. She’d never read the whole document either.
I was familiar with the opening statement and the first part of the second paragraph: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….”
It’s a little pathetic that an octogenarian should be so complacent, so uninformed to have not read the rest of it.
I ordered a replica of the declaration for myself and one to be sent to my 19-year-old grandson. I want him to read it out loud, too — maybe read it to his parents and talk about this one-of-a-kind document while they are waiting for the fireworks to start.
As I read, I was reminded that this amazing country was the first to try this “we the people” thing with boat loads of immigrants landing daily on our shores from every country in the world.
“We are all equal,” it reads.
We all deserve a chance to try to work together and thrive.
Uniting the United States was an audacious gamble. Compromises had to be made.
We keep trying but have yet to get it perfect. Still, for 250 years, there has always with this wonderful document, this declaration of independence, to inspire and guide us.
Anyone in leadership in this country knows that “we the people” can be a difficult thing to depend upon.
People run hot and cold for different reasons in various parts of the country. The whim of a crowd of people can turn on a dime. One minute, public opinion flows one direction. The slightest rumor can turn the tide instantly.
I’ve always hoped, even trusted, that within this mix of “we the people” there would be enough free thinkers, smart people, thoughtful folk, people with a healthy sense of ethics, integrity, and energy to bring the swinging fringes back to center, compromise, and find level ground that was safe to stand on.
Let’s celebrate “we the people,” this Fourth of July — the people who haven’t given up.
We the people who keep trying, we the people who pay attention and speak up, we the people — the Arts, the Jeannies, the Dons, the Bills and Bobs, the Carls, Marks and Pauls, the Erics, the Alicias, the Jennifers and Janes — who just keep doing our bit, on another day in our country.