Fourth of July -- What It Means?

Like most holidays, the 4th of July holiday weekend has a plethora of meanings to a cornucopia of folks. We're a long way from what it meant on July 4, 1776. Or are we?

A local radio station is taking the day to air "Letters Home", letters from current-day military personnel in the Iraq/Afghanistan war zones, to friends and loved ones, to highlight and underscore the human element of war and independence.

Not to be outdone -- and more familiar in neighborhoods across the country -- my neighbors in this particular complex are all geared to blow the place up, with tons of legal and illegal fireworks (the illegal stuff is legal in Wyoming, a couple hours' north, with I-25 and US 287 serving as the modern-day Ho Chi Minh Trail of things that sail, spark and 'splode), delighting kids, annoying neighbors and local authorities, and terrifying pets and causing local flying life to sit gingerly and alertly on their perches.

And holiday travellers throng to the great outdoors in droves: as can be witnessed on the parking lot status of I-70 west of Denver, between Genessee and Idaho Springs. It's a wonder some drivers don't just pull over and pitch their tents right where they're stuck. Personally, I'm convinced that's what's causing the jam, since I don't travel to the source of it.

Nor do I have the time to. 'Cuz my travel is for 'celebrating' the 4th at work. Working. Watching others find their own ways and reasons to celebrate the 4th. And paying those pesky bills. Danged nuisances, but I digress.

But amidst all of that, I'll keep a brain cell or two thinking about those who are doing the dirty and good fight of sustaining the seminal foundation of independence we so take for granted in the New Millennium: defending us on the far frontier. And in so doing, making a noble effort -- whatever comes of it in the end -- to allow foreign persons, ignorant of what 'freedom' and 'independence' is in actuality -- a taste of something worth fighting to have, and for.