My kind of 4th

Those of you who’ve read the blog for any length of time know I love birthdays.  I share a (nearly) half birthday with the United States and enjoy celebrating this event in my own special way.  Today’s blog post will take a look at those everyday events in my life that I believe truly celebrate America (not Canada – I like those folks, but they had their day on Friday).

Before we start, I just want to point out that I’m not a fan of fireworks.  When my kids were little, their Dad would drag them off to a fireworks display through which the girl would scream and the boy would either cry or hide while Mom had a peaceful hour at home.  These days the girl takes in KaboomFest in Red Bank … and I’m not quite sure what the boy is doing but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.  I never understood the appeal of fake explosions; if I want fake explosions I’ll watch a Bruce Willis movie in the comfort of my own home.

That brings me to my first way to celebrate America: watch either a Tom Hanks or Bruce Willis movie. You’ll cover every film genre with those two actors with the exception of unintelligible French films and brooding, snowy Scandinavian flicks which aren’t very American anyway.  Watch Forest Gump and you get a nice not quite accurate retelling of modern U.S. history, and take in Saving Private Ryan for some serious patriotism.  Watch any Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan flick and you’ll get this American woman’s ideal romance.  Watch any Die Hard movie and you see Eurotrash given their due and a helicopter killed by a car.  I always feel a bit sorry to see Alan Rickman fall off Nokatomi Tower but hey, he’s a Brit, and today’s our day!  After all, we finally have a president that combines the best of both American actors: Obama kicks ass but is quite the loving husband and family man (and knows who’s really in charge in that household).

Now to the second way to celebrate America’s birthday: Eat a lot, preferably prepared with real fire.  As a vegan, I tend to pass on the fire but did provide a few 4th of July BBQ recipes this week over on @jerseygirlcook‘s blog.  I may not kill my holiday dinner but trust me, I can pack just as much fat into a meal as any omnivore in the 48 contiguous states.  (OK, maybe not Georgia – I think Paula Deen beats my fat content every time.)

Americans like any excuse to eat to excess, and our birthday is no exception. Maybe you can get @shoreflicks to set up his outdoor movie screen at your BBQ so you can combine my first AND second way to celebrate the holiday!  Imagine the taste of that favorite summer dish enjoyed while watching Bonfire of the Vanities, a story replete with Wall Street avarice, tabloid journalism, and opportunistic politics … Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, and everything that makes America great! (I know, it’s R rated, but we don’t do little children at my BBQs.)

To prepare to dine in excess, you should try my third way to celebrate this holiday: visit Walmart!  I know, I too avoided the King of box retailers for years, but recently discovered an incredibly awesome remodeled version not far from my home.  Used to be Target was the kid whose white shirts were still white at dinner time and Walmart was the kid that ate dirt.  Not any more!  My Walmart beats my supermarket prices on just about anything but fresh produce and has everything bread to boot (if Italian bread and an everything bagel had a baby…).  Also, if you need a tshirt to get into the holiday spirit, Walmart kindly uses “American” sizing, i.e. a Large in any other remotely reasonable store is at most Medium here.  You’ll feel so much better about stuffing yourself if you can still fit into that tshirt the day after!

Finally, let’s face it, Americans like to celebrate with liquor.  [Now those of you under the age of 21, look away while the grownups do grown up things.]  As @mswas would say, the obvious choice is beer, but not for me. @sfadem recently treated me to sushi at Klein’s in Belmar (no relation to Ron) and when I ordered a glass of sangria, the server surprisingly asked “red or white?” I was thrilled – a dining establishment that finally gets that white sangria is just as good as red and better in the summer! Alas, it turned out he asked not because Klein’s serves white sangria but because his girlfriend prefers it.  So at your 4th of July revelry, don’t be like Klein’s; try my recipe for white wine sangria and pleasantly surprise your guests!

White Wine Sangria

1 bottle white wine (well, you might as well get 2, it’s a holiday!)

1/4 limoncello liquer (I know, it’s Italian, but this IS Jersey)

1/4 orange juice

1/8 cup lemon juice

1/4 white grape juice

1/2 cup vodka

1 cup halved purple seedless grapes

1 lemon sliced then cut the slices in half

1 orange cut into slices then cut the slices in half

Put it all in a pitcher and chill.  You can add a little soda water but I tend to add either a splash of Fanta (because Fanta just says summer to me) or sparkling water for just a little bubbly.  Pour yourself a glass, grab a seat and a veggie burger on a plate from Walmart, sit back and enjoy an all American movie starring Tom, Bruce, or both!

We the People

I spent a lot of time trying to find a topic for today’s blog post that inspired me.  Wordpress has the Post a Day challenge but their topics did little for me.  I even read some blog post suggestions for photographers. No topic excited me because I couldn’t stop thinking about the shooting in Arizona this past weekend.

Don’t stop reading! I’m not going to point fingers; you can find that other places on the internet, and from what I’ve read online about Congresswoman Giffords, she’s a centrist and a true public servant, the shooter a disturbed young man.  Instead of being just another voice of outrage in the crowd, I’d like examine my own political experience in an effort to start a discussion centered on healing rather than more violence either vocal or physical.

Let’s start at the beginning.  I’m a Carter Democrat.  I think there are maybe 4 of us left if you don’t count the Carters themselves.  My family is political in the sense that we talked politics when I was a child, and my extended family is not all of one opinion.  I started paying attention after Watergate when my Republican father’s party was in disgrace.  We got Time magazine every week, and I remember reading an article about all of the candidates for the ’76 election before the primaries even began.  At dinner soon after, my Dad brought up the election.

With youthful enthusiasm, I blurted out, “I’d vote for Jimmy Carter!”

Silence.  Let’s just say Carter wasn’t my Dad’s choice or even on his radar.  A peanut farmer from Georgia? Never happen. Dad got his redemption in the Reagan and Bush years, but for a brief moment, my politics took the national stage. President Carter loved God, loved country, and was a liberal just like me.  We haven’t changed.  I won’t go into why I think he was a good president – there are lots of books you can read that explain it better than I can – but we all can agree that he’s an amazing former President.  It’s the qualities I saw in him as a presidential candidate and inspired me to become a Carter Democrat that make him such a strong force of social good today.

Imagine that, a liberal who loves God and country.

Fast forward to 2008.  My daughter and I were in Haiti on election day.  If you can ever be in another country on a U.S. election day, do it.  We were amazed how much the Haitians knew about our candidates, and every last one of them was for Obama.  You would’ve thought someone won the Super Bowl and the World Series based on all the celebrating in the streets that night!  (I grew up in Pittsburgh, so I know what both sound like.) No Haitian could articulate what they thought Obama would do for them, but his promise of hope and change resonated in my friend Willem’s deep Carribean voice every time he said “Obama!”

Another political figure emerged from that campaign: Sarah Palin.  That Halloween, I went to school dressed as Sarah Palin complete with an “Alaskan Girls Kick Ass” campaign button (blame the internet).  Thanks to Sarah, I discovered Tina Fey.  After the election, my Dad bought me Going Rogue, and for the record, my Mom hates Sarah Palin but my Dad’s like me: we just can’t look away.  I discovered that Palin and I have a lot in common being close to the same age and coming from similar family backgrounds.  Her politics aren’t mine, but I knew if we sat down to talk over coffee, we would probably find much in common at least in our personal lives.

Now I’m reading her new book America by Heart.  Her rants regarding the “libs” and the “left” leave me cold, but her chapter about the men and women serving our country brought tears to my eyes.  One of my students commented on my birthday blog post, saying, “I liked your part about loving the USA.”  Her Dad is career military and went back to Afghanistan so that she could graduate from our school rather than transfer to another school once again.  I mentioned that chapter to her because I thought of her family and the sacrifice they’ve made for all of us while reading it.

It was her family and all the men and women serving today that came to mind when I heard about the shooting in Arizona.

Our country was the first one on this earth to create a system that allows the people to change the government peaceably.  No assassinations involved, no revolution necessary.  It’s also the country with some of the most lenient hand gun laws in the world.  I often wonder if our Founding Fathers held a modern pistol in their hands maybe they would’ve approached the Second Amendment differently.  I wonder if Mrs. Palin realized the power of using crosshairs as a symbol on her website for districts where elected officials were to be “targeted” not for death but for removal from office.

I think she forgot the quote she used in her book attributed to Ronald Reagan:  ”Our revolution is the first to say the people are the masters and government is their servant.”  You don’t shoot your servant if they’re doing a bad job, you fire them.  President Reagan understood the value of symbolism; perhaps Mrs. Palin can take a lesson from her hero. Whether or not the shooter in Arizona targeted Congresswoman Giffords based on Palin’s call to action or his own mental issues (which prompts a different discussion regarding mental healthcare in this country), he forgot that our Constitution makes our vote more powerful than a bullet.

We need to remember that.  Every day.

To close this blog post, I’d like to share a brief story about the Pledge of Allegiance.  When I started teaching 8 years ago, I stood respectfully but didn’t say the Pledge.  I believed it was tainted by the McCarthy era, the phrase “under God” blatently violated the separation of Church and State put in place by those Founding Fathers, among other issues.   A Korean vet put me straight.  He told me soldiers don’t fight for whoever is president at the moment, they don’t fight for their generals, or just their own families.  They fight for “We the People” and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and exemplified in the freedoms all Americans enjoy. He suggested I say the Pledge not as a throwback to the Cold War but as a thank you to every man and woman who’s served under the flag and an affirmation of my love of my country’s principals.

I’ve been saying the Pledge ever since.