SUNDAY FUNDAY - JULY 9, 2023

 SUNDAY FUNDAY

JULY 9, 2023

WOOOOO!!!

We are halfway through 2023 - we just celebrated the 247th anniversary of being a nation.  

And, are we any better off than six months ago?

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Some leftover Fourth of July Jokes
What did the ghost say on the Fourth of July?  Red, White, and BOO

What did the tourist say after leaving the Statue of Liberty?  Keep in Torch

What’s red, white, black, and blue?  Uncle Sam after a boxing match

Who has to work on the Fourth of July?  Fire Works

What did the colonists wear to the Boston Tea Party?  Tea-Shirts

Where was the Declaration of Independence Signed?  On the Bottom

What did the fire-cracker eat at the movies?  Pop Corn

What was the most popular dance in 1776?  Indepen-Dance

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The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(excerpts)

Paul Revere was a silversmith in Boston.  (The poem is not exactly historically true!!)

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower, as a signal light, —

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

***

You know the rest. In the books you have read,

How the British regulars fired and fled, —

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,

Chasing the red-coats down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again

Under the trees at the turn of the road,

And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm, —

A cry of defiance and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,

And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

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Do you know the words to the National Anthem:

O say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

I do sing along with the singer.  The Star Spangled Banner is a tough song to sing.  Some have suggested America the Beautiful, or even God Bless America as better songs. 

The Star Spangled Banner is from the War of 1812 when Francis Scott Key was a prisoner at Fort McHenry in Baltimore - and rising in the morning saw that the American Flag was still waving in the breeze.  Even with the bombardment, “our flag was still there”.

(And, the words “Play Ball” are NOT part of the National Anthem!!!)

Do you have a flag?  

Maybe you have heard that many flags are made in China.  These days, it might seem like every item in your house is manufactured somewhere other than the United States. Maybe even the red, white, and blue flag flying outside your house. But, according to the Flag Manufacturers Association of America, 94% of American flags are actually manufactured in the United States. 

The Flag Manufacturers Association of America, however, states that its seal on a flag ensures “every step of the manufacturing process for that flag has been completed using domestic materials in U.S. facilities with U.S. labor. When you purchase a flag with the FMAA Certified seal, you can be confident that your flag was not imported from another country.”

There have been several proposals in the past to require that all federally-purchased American flags be 100% U.S.-made. The most recent was in 2019 when Sens. Susan Collins and Sherrod Brown teamed up for the “All-American Flag Act.” 

Has every official American Flag always had 13 stripes?  No.  When Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union, the United States Flag had 15 stars - AND - 15 stripes. 

So, our National Anthem - the Star Spangled Banner was composed at a time with 15 stars and 15 stripes!!!  (If that trend would have continued, we’d now have a flag with 50 Stars and 50 STRIPES!!!)

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The Liberty Bell

Another symbol of America is the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  It was in the Pennsylvania State House - which is now known as Independence Hall.  The Liberty Bell developed a crack in the 1840s - seemingly from frequent use.  There have been attempts to fix the bell, but the crack has been seen as part of America - a little flawed but still functioning.  

The Liberty Bell has an inscription:  "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof." - taken from Leviticus 25:10 in the Bible

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Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

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Yes, we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights - Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness!!!  (We aren’t promised happiness - but we can pursue it!!!).  Ben Franklin wrote: “The Declaration only guarantees you the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
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WRAP UP

God bless America, land that I love

Stand beside her and guide her

Through the night with the light from above

From the mountains to the prairies

To the oceans white with foam

God bless America, my home sweet home

Let’s have an awesome second half of 2023!!!  Let’s enjoy our lives, our liberties, and our pursuit of Happiness!!!!

Karen White, July 5, 2023