It was the fourth of July, 1998, at\u00a0sunset. I was in a helicopter, cruising toward the Queen Mary, watching the\u00a0world explode into color. I was writing Grace Slick\u2019s memoir at the time, leadsinger for the rock and roll group, Jefferson Airplane. We\u2019d developed a
friendship over the months that we\u2019d been working together and I\u2019d told her\u00a0about a novel I was working on with a female helicopter pilot as one of the\u00a0protagonists and the research I\u2019d been doing.<\/p>\n
A week before the fourth, Grace\u00a0asked me if it was possible to rent a chopper to view the fireworks from the\u00a0skies. I asked my pilot, she said \u201cYes,\u201d and here we were with a small group of\u00a0our friends, headphones in place, looking down at a world on fire.<\/p>\n
We landed on a barge beside the\u00a0Queen Mary. The ocean liner had been known for its speed and for the fact that\u00a0it had transported eight hundred thousand military members during World War 11.
Now it had become a hotel, a museum and event space and offered a brilliant\u00a0display of fireworks every year. Grace and I sat at the edge of the barge, our\u00a0feet dangling over the water, watching the skies flare up with color. We looked\u00a0at each other in awe. I was moved by the beauty, we oohed and aahed, but\u00a0something else was on my mind and it still is.<\/p>\n
What does this day really mean? What\u00a0does independence mean? What\u2019s the point of all these eruptions of light and\u00a0deafening sounds that made our pets run for cover? Like so many of our\u00a0holidays, it seems like we\u2019ve lost the deeper meaning. It\u2019s so much more than
eating good food and watching pretty explosions in the sky. It\u2019s about expressing\u00a0our freedom even in the restraints of society. Being able to do what we want to\u00a0do. Being able to say what we want to say and be who we really are.<\/p>\n
We were colonists under British\u00a0rule for 170 years and refused to give in as they systematically took away our\u00a0rights. We refused to be controlled and we did something about it. How the\u00a0United States won its freedom is a much longer story than this blog will allow,
but suffice it to say that July 4th means a lot more than we give it credit for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The truth is that we fought hard\u00a0for our freedom from the start and we\u2019re still doing it, but that\u2019s what being\u00a0an American means. I feel disappointed when I hear people say that if things\u00a0don\u2019t go their way, they\u2019re out of here. They want to jump ship. I choose to\u00a0stay and represent the light. In fact, I feel a personal obligation to uphold
goodness in the face of darkness and acknowledge the things that our founding\u00a0fathers gifted us with, at a huge cost to them.<\/p>\n
Aside rom the obvious political\u00a0concerns, we\u2019ve also fought for some rights that aren\u2019t available in other\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n
Freedom from domestic violence.\u00a0The freedom to not wear a Burka and\u00a0let our faces show.<\/p>\n
The freedom to say \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n
The freedom to say \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freedom from slavery.<\/p>\n
The freedom to vote.<\/p>\n
The freedom to learn.<\/p>\n
Freedom from racism.<\/p>\n
The freedom to love and marry\u00a0anyone we choose.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve won some but we still have a
lot of work to do.<\/p>\n
I want to be clear here that I\u2019m
not putting the kabosh on the celebratory aspect of this day. Just like you, I intend to be with friends, eat good food, and enjoy watching the colors flying\u00a0through the sky. But I also intend to keep in mind what I\u2019m celebrating and\u00a0why. Please join me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was the fourth of July, 1998, at\u00a0sunset. I was in a helicopter, cruising toward the Queen Mary, watching the\u00a0world explode into color. I was writing Grace Slick\u2019s memoir at the time, leadsinger for the rock and roll group, Jefferson Airplane. We\u2019d developed afriendship over the months that we\u2019d been working together and I\u2019d told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2511,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions\/2511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}