Tag: struggle

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Beyond the Fourth

This year for Independence Day, I want to think a little less about July 4.

Heresy, I know. But let me explain.

The imagery, of course, has become iconic. The Continental Congress pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” to the fight for independence. John Hancock flourishing his gaudy signature, with most of the others adding their own a month later. Public readings, bells ringing out, fireworks, dogs howling … OK, maybe that last one was added from my own experience.

It’s all very celebratory. Triumphal. Familiar.

And in times of struggle or questioning, or among those who feel left out of independence’s promise, it can also sometimes feel a little hollow.

“The Fourth of July is yours, not mine,” wrote former slave Frederick Douglass in the 1850s. Others have taken up that call at different times, seeing freedom pledged to all but denied to them, or a government in which their trust is shaky or absent.

But celebration is only a small part of the Revolution’s heritage. Maybe not even the most important one (with apologies to John Adams).

So for a moment, I want to step back. Widen the lens. And look at the months after the Declaration.

The British kept coming. And coming. And coming, in overwhelming numbers. In September of 1776, one American solider said the massive fleet off Kip’s Bay looked like all London was afloat.  

And the Americans? Mostly a familiar pattern. Fight. Lose. Retreat. Repeat. Over and over, Washington had to pull back, just to keep his army alive. By mid-December, Congress had fled Philadelphia, fearing that capture of the city was imminent.

In short, the fight looked hopeless.

But the fight went on. Because the alternative was unthinkable.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Thomas Paine wrote, “yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. … Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

Hope in hopeless times. Resolution in the face of seeming defeat. Standing up when it’s called for, whatever the cost.

That’s the Independence Day message I want to remember.

And it’s one that we can all inherit and pass on.

Even in the times when the nation is divided. Even by those who feel little reason to celebrate. And even in days when an array of crisis upon crisis seems to grind the soul with teeth of stone.

We’ve seen these times. We were born in these times. And we know how to face them.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now: the Revolution never truly ended. There is always more to do, always more to build to achieve an America that can match its ideals. Sometimes we stall. Sometimes we go backward. But the fight goes on.

That’s a promise that rings louder than any bell and shines brighter than any firework. A declaration that lives not in ink and parchment, but in each of us.

Happy Fourth, everyone. Make it what you will.

And then do the same with the nation.

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A Bad Night’s Sleep

Some things just don’t seem necessary, you know? Like bringing sand to the beach. Or rocks to the mountains. Or World Series hopes to a Rockies game.

Nonetheless, a pair of Swiss brothers have decided that what the world really needs is a bad’s night sleep.

Billed as a “zero star suite,” the brothers – yes, of course, they’re artists – are renting out a double bed on a platform with a couple of bedside tables, lamps and no doors, walls or ceiling whatsoever. According to Reuters, “The intention is to make guests think about the problems in the world … and inspire them to act differently.”

The cost: just under $340. That’s with room service, mind you.

So, let me just ask the audience … anyone who needs help thinking about all the troubles in the world, or even just in your corner of it, please raise your hand.

Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, I kind of thought so.

These days, it’s absurdly easy to dwell on the troubles of the world, not least because we seem to have bought the Whitman Sampler selection. Whatever your faction, philosophy or belief, there’s enough out there to keep anyone up at night. Climate change and court rulings. The economy and gas prices. Ukraine and … well, you get the idea.

And of course, none of us come to these problems with a blank slate. Even in the best of times, we’re all dealing with struggles of our own: family, health or a dozen more besides. If anything, we have too many alarms blaring on the deck. Most are in the “do not ignore” category but each of us only comes with one body and mind to attend to it all. (Well, unless you bought the Doctor Who Time Traveler Accessory Kit, in which case I want to speak with you right after this column.)

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. And depressed. And, well, sleepless.

What’s a person to do?

Something.

No, that’s not a word I left in the column while trying to think of a more profound phrase. It’s what we do. In the end, it’s all we can do.

Something. 
Our piece of the problem. In our place. At our time. However small it may seem.

Some of you may remember that I collect quotes the way some people collect action figures or classic cars. And for a long time, a 120-year-old quote from Edward Everett Hale has had a prominent place in my collection:

“I am only one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

The something I ought to do, I can do.

And by the grace of God, I will.”  

Every effort by an individual looks small. But none of them is meaningless. And enough “smalls” put together over time just may add up to something pretty big.

That’s not an excuse to sit back and trust that everything will work out. I’m peddling hope here, not optimism. What’s the difference? Hope commits. It rolls up its sleeves. As another writer put it, by acknowledging that problems can be solved, hope assumes an obligation to get up and do something.

It doesn’t guarantee “easy.” Heck, it doesn’t guarantee anything. But hope calls you to do what you can, where you can.  

Overwhelming? Sure. But not futile.

I’ll indulge in one last quote, from a science fiction author named Leo Frankowski. In one of his books, a modern Polish time traveler explains to a medieval lord that while his people don’t live to fight, they do fight for keeps:

“We fight long wars, and we win,” he says. “Once we fought for a hundred thirty years, when the very name of our country was erased from the map. And we won.”

That’s hope. That’s commitment.

That’s us.

And hopefully, it’s something that helps you sleep a little better at night.

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Digging In

Everyone has their own way of pushing their limits. Some run marathons. Some climb mountains. Some adopt intense exercise routines that would make Captain America gasp for breath.  

Me? Shoveling out a Colorado spring will do just fine, thank you.

I know I’ve got a lot of company here. If you didn’t have a blower, a service or an ally last week, you got to have your own personal encounter with Nature’s own concrete. The sort of wet, dense, heavy stuff that has to be cleared out in layers, testing your spinal column with every scoop.

“GrrrrAAAAA!”

And of course, Colorado’s snow fights back. If you tried to get a jump on the situation last Sunday, you may have had the joy of turning around at the end of a fervent shoveling session to discover your path had been covered over again. Multiple times.

In my case, my brain and heart love snow but my back and knees beg to differ. So with a big storm, I shovel the way some people read “War and Peace” – many short quick bursts rather than one long stretch. (I also have the blessings of helpful neighbors doing their own part and then some, which I’m pretty sure you don’t get with Russian novels.)

It’s tedious. It’s exhausting. More often than not, you feel like you’re making no progress at all. But you keep going because you have to.

That seems to apply to a lot of life, lately.

For some, it’s a year of pandemic existence hitting the mind all at once as a vaccine starts to come into view. So much has been endured, and with a light in the distance the last laps suddenly feel so agonizingly slow.

For some, it’s yet one more shooting in one more city with one more burst of racial hate that shakes the soul with its vehemence. A cycle we seem to keep running like a murderous version of Groundhog Day, a little more fatigued and desperate for each repetition.

For some, it’s not the global but the personal. A stubborn health situation. A broken family relationship. A life that seems to keep pounding the same streets and hitting the same blocked alleys.

Maybe there’s progress, somewhere. Maybe you can even see it, if barely. But it just … seems … oh … so … slow.

You’re not wrong. You’re not crazy.

But you’re not hopeless either.

You’re still in the fight.

And even if it feels like carving Mount Rushmore with a toothpick, every scratch is something. Simply not falling off the mountain is something.

A 10-minute burst against the snow never looks like much. Especially when it keeps coming down. But if we keep finding another 10 minutes … however far apart … things can start to change.

 And when a friend or a neighbor starts to lend their own shovel (or even their blower), that next 10 minutes starts to look more possible.

Sooner or later, snow melts on its own. Most other problems aren’t quite as obliging. But if we persist – if we lend each other the strength to persist – we can make a difference. To ourselves. To our neighbors. Maybe even to the world.

It won’t be easy. It often hurts. But if we pick up the shovel at all, we’re saying it can be done. That even if we can’t do all of it, we can do our piece.

That’s hope.

And that’s an exercise that will make all of us stronger.

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This Looks Familiar

“Uh-oh!”

That’s one of the Missy phrases that triggers instant attention every time, especially when accompanied by laughter. Our disabled ward likes to pull pranks from time to time, and the more she knows she’s doing something “wrong” – usually putting something where it doesn’t belong – the more jovial she’ll be.

I looked up from the book I had gotten out, on the alert … and laughed as well. Once again, Missy had just swiped my glasses from where they were resting and tried them on. My oversize lenses framed her face surprisingly well,  especially when paired with her crooked grin.

“Go show Heather!”

Off she went. Soon Heather’s laughter echoed as well. And then later that night, after we’d put Missy to bed, she noted something.

“You know,” she said, “it’s amazing how much she looks like Andy with those on. I mean, I always knew there was a resemblance but with those glasses, you can really see it.”

She showed me the pictures – one she’d just taken, the other an old shot of Missy’s brother Andy, who had died in 2006 at the age of 40. Same smile and laughing eyes. Same coloring and facial structure. And now, even the big glasses were similar.

No doubt. None in the world.

Wow.

I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s a little startling, isn’t it? And that sort of déjà vu can lurk around any corner, whether it’s a familiar face, a well-known location, or an old time that seems to become new again.

Maybe especially that last one. Lately, at least.

That may sound a little strange to say. After all, these last 12 months or so have seen an unprecedented use of the word “unprecedented.” (Sorry.)  Maybe in reaction to that, we keep reaching out for comparisons that will make everything make sense. Are we once again seeing the stubbornness and desperation of the Great Pandemic of 1918? The unrest and division of 1968? Are we reprising the corruption of the Watergate years, the economic uncertainty of the Depression, the political uncertainty of Europe between the wars?

Ultimately, of course, every time is its own. But as the old saying goes, even though history doesn’t truly repeat, it often rhymes. It’s still made by us – and our hearts, our minds, still have a sibling’s resemblance to those who came before, however much the world around us may have changed.

And so we find ourselves dealing with the same sorts of core issues given new faces and forms. Fear. Injustice. Uncertainty. Prejudice. Anger. Round and round we turn, sometimes reaching for something better, sometimes grasping only for ourselves.

No, not so different at all.

And therefore, maybe not so hopeless as we might be tempted to think.

At this time of year, it’s common to quote the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe a little TOO common, as we grow tempted to set aside meaningful action for beautiful words, or adopt a spirit of complacency instead of struggle. But with that warning in mind, his words on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize seem to fit these “similar times”:

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights,” he said, “we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

That’s not a pat on the head. It’s not an excuse to sit aside and say “Oh, well, things will work themselves out.” A struggle not joined is lost. But it is a call to hope, a reminder that working for hope is not futile. That the worst times carry the seeds of the best – if we’re willing to put forth the labor to plant them and help them grow.

Similar times. Similar fears. Similar promise, if we can face the moment with hope, courage and effort.

If we don’t?

Uh-oh.

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Change Of Course

At long last, Heather’s sleeping.

That sounds simple. It’s been anything but.

For a few weeks now, Heather’s bedtime routine has looked like a kung fu movie. Every few seconds, she kicks with a force that could shatter pine. Every few moments, her arms lash out with a speed that Bruce Lee would envy. Over and over, on and on for hours, long enough to clear even the largest army of unseen ninja.

All we’re missing is the bad voice dubbing.

As you’ve guessed, there’s no Hollywood contract involved. Heather’s multiple sclerosis sometimes unwraps surprise gifts for us, and this has been one of the most unwelcome to unwrap. Call it myoclonus. Call it restless leg syndrome amped up to warp factor 5. Call it whatever you want, but please call it from long distance – you don’t want it visiting the house.

Not unless you like getting about five hours of sleep a week, that is.

Nights can be endless when you’re trying to find something that helps for even a few minutes – distraction, massage, anything – and hope becomes hard to find. You start to wonder what the doctor can do, what tools still might be in the box, especially for the woman who’s allergic to almost everything.

And then. One day after the worst night of all. One change in medicine, so small we weren’t sure it could possibly work.

Quiet.

Peace.

We’d both forgotten what that felt like.

Heather’s not completely motionless at night. But the big battle is over. What’s left is on mute – uncomfortable, sometimes even still painful, but not hopeless. She can sleep and rest and rebuild.

Just one change can make all the difference in the world.

That’s true for a family. For a state. For a nation.

Maybe it’s the small suggestion at the end of a hard day that makes everything brighter for a minute. (“Hey, Missy, how about we grab some ice cream?”)

Maybe it’s the promise of snow after weeks of fire, bringing the cold and the wet to where it’s most needed.

Maybe it’s the election year reminder, after too many commercials and too much junk mail, that we have the power to change things. To decide who we should keep and who should go, to vote against what weakens us and for what makes us stronger.

Whatever it is, it’s a reminder.

What was, doesn’t have to be.

I don’t want to just stop at Lincoln’s favorite lesson, “This too shall pass.” For me, that’s a little too …well, passive. In my mind, it’s clearer to say “This too shall change.”

Some changes we simply have to endure and make the best of. But some we can touch. Some even start with us. They may not be big changes, but small ones can propagate, whether it’s the crack that brings down a foundation or the seed that someday shades the entire yard.

That’s a cause for hope. That even our worst situations are unstable at their roots. That with work and effort and determination, something new can emerge. Probably not perfect. Almost certainly with problems of its own. But nonetheless, something we can build from.

The cast of Les Miserables once sung in hope that “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” They weren’t wrong. The light’s still there. Waiting.

That sounds simple. We know it’s anything but.

But difficult isn’t impossible.

And when the big battle is over – any of the big battles –  maybe we can even take a moment to rest.

Anyone up for a kung fu movie?

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Double-0 My!

As the first flakes of Longmont’s snow season crept to the ground, Leroy Brown stood ready for action.

That may sound a little incongruous for Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, the ace child detective of Idaville (as opposed to Jim Croce’s ill-fated gambler). But for our new-ish brown Hyundai of the same name, its moment had clearly arrived. The heater roared. The engine hummed. And the newly-attached license plate declared its tough-guy status to the world.

Or at least, the last three digits of said license plate.

Leroy Brown was now agent 009.

As you might imagine, the prospect of our car now being part of the British Secret Service has inspired much hilarity from friends and family, especially when we all considered whether the Q Branch Option Package might be installed. (For the record, there’s no smoke screen and no oil slick, which probably wouldn’t pass emissions tests in Colorado, anyway.) But among the shared laughter, one friend introduced a note of reality – well, cinematic reality, anyway.

“As I recall, 009 suffers an unenviable fate in the Bond canon …”

Hmm.

For those who aren’t deeply familiar with the series, the James Bond movies do have an agent 009. A few, in fact, but the one who gets the most screen time appears in the opening minutes of “Octopussy,” fleeing an East Berlin circus in a clown suit while chased by a pair of knife-throwing twins. (You kind of had to be there.) Fighting back hard against his pursuers, he’s mortally wounded and knocked into a river … but still survives long enough to stagger to the British Embassy and deliver, with his dying breath, the Faberge’ egg that kicks off the rest of the plot.

So, OK, you could argue that it’s an ill-omened number.  But I liked it better than ever.

This was a double-0 agent to identify with.

Everyone knows James Bond, agent 007, the handsome expert on a dozen plot-relevant subjects, who makes the ladies swoon and always has the right gadget to get out of a tough situation. Bond walks through life with expensive clothes, expensive cars, and a plot armor that guarantees he’ll always come out on top in the end, even if many of his lovers and associates aren’t so lucky.

That’s not most of us.

Most of us, I suspect, are a little closer to 009. Struggling against situations that we’re not really prepared for. Having to constantly keep moving to keep from being overwhelmed. Fearing that one mistake or bit of bad luck will bring everything crashing down. Maybe even feeling a little ridiculous while doing it.

And yet, still doing what we need to do, with everything we’ve got in us.

That, too, is a hero. Much more of one than Commander Bond, in fact.

And it’s a heroism we see every day.

Maybe it’s holding a life together in the face of physical or mental challenges … or a family together with finances and nerves strained to the limit … or facing the world while the heart quietly screams for someone who’s been lost. It may be any of a million other situations – the details are personal, individual, private.

But the strength shown is one that speaks to us all.

So Leroy Brown, agent 009? Absolutely. In fact, it’s an honor, one that I’m happy to carry on behalf of all the 009s out there.

It’s a bond. Universal bond.

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A Moment of Victory

The word has reached around the world and back again, echoing in our minds like the ringing of a church bell.

Safe.

Safe.

The boys are safe.

At this time last month, most of us had probably never heard of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave, never thought much about Thailand at all. Now the rescue of 12 young soccer players and their assistant coach from its winding depths has been celebrated from shore to shore.

Safe.

Safe.

The boys are safe.

It unfolded like a movie – and you know people are making movies about this. The innocent exploration by the boys that turned into a deadly trap as rainwater cut them off. The desperate search, in a place where radios were useless, guided by determination and the maps of an obsessed spelunker. The fear that hope had already gone. Too far. Too deep. Too late.

And then, too amazing.

One life lost, unforgettably; a retired Thai navy diver who used up his oxygen while delivering air to the boys. (Remember his name: Saman Kunam.) And then, the rescue. The emergence, after so many days, of the team and its rescuers.

Safe.

Safe.

The boys are safe.

If we got a little obsessed, it’s understandable. It’s what we do in crises like these, whether it’s a flooded Thai cave or a collapsed Chilean mine. For a moment, other fears become muted. There’s just the danger and the hope, the prayer for its resolution, often riding on the backs of so many that seem to be so few.

We know that sort of story from the inside, even if we’ve never been further underground than a basement rec room. More than once, the simple weather of the West has created devastation that took entire communities to overcome. Blizzards. Tornadoes. Floods that tore our own city in two physically, and made us one in mind and effort.

It’s a story of hope. Not optimism. Hope, with all the strain and effort and common strength that goes into making it real.

When it’s us, we reach for each other. When it isn’t, we reach for the stories. Because we need the stories of hope so very badly.

In a world where the worst of us dominate every news cycle, we remember that the best of us have not gone away.

In a time of anger and division and fear, we remember that struggles are not hopeless. That fights are not futile. That trials can be overcome.

And at a moment when it’s all too easy to write off our own world as too far gone to save, beyond the reach of any rescue … at those moments, this shines one more light, holds out one more promise that desperation, ingenuity, and will may yet find the way.

This isn’t a call to become complacent, sure that things will work themselves out. The problems facing us are real. Lives often hang in the balance. The rain is falling, the tunnels are filling, and waiting for the best simply uses up time we don’t have.

No, this is a call to fight. To try. To struggle together in the face of everything facing us, to be the rescue that we need. No one of us will do it all – but each one of us can do something, whatever the challenge may be.

We must hope, in order to try. Even in the face of overwhelming futility. We must try, in order to succeed, even when the quest seems quixotic.

And in the moments when success comes – well, then we’re allowed a little celebration for us all.

Safe.

Safe.

The boys are safe.

And hope, with them, survives.

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Making the Jump

At age seven, I had no doubt about it. Han Solo was the coolest guy in the universe.

OK, Luke Skywalker was the one I wanted to be – I mean, Jedi powers and a lightsaber, right? But Han didn’t need them. He was the guy who could do anything. Fly through asteroid fields. Talk to Wookiees. Ride into savage blizzards just to save a friend. Heck, he even tried to gun down Darth Vader himself. Sure, it didn’t work, but the man knew an opportunity, right?

But even cool guys have their moments. And one of Han’s has stuck with me down the years.

If you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back (so, most of you), you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was the film’s major running gag. Han and his friends are in a tight spot in the Millennium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Han’s gained a little distance, and is ready to jump to light speed and leave trouble behind … and the hyperdrive fails.

Once. Twice. Even a third time, with a friend at the controls.

“It’s not my fault!”

I may have never had to fast-talk space gangsters, or outshoot stormtroopers, or snatch a princess from the Death Star. But I could surely empathize with that one.

You try. You try. And you try again. And it seems like absolutely nothing happens.

My wife Heather is the master of this. Over the years, she’s endured more chronic illnesses than Jabba the Hutt has bounty hunters. Crohn’s disease. Ankylosing spondylitis. Multiple sclerosis. A host of situations and medications that send my spell-checker screaming for help, or at least extra vowels.

Once in a while, we beat one, like the endometriosis that finally submitted to surgery. And sometimes, we get long quiet spells where life is almost normal. But then there are the other nights.

The ones where the current medicines don’t work. And the alternatives are all on the “allergy list.”

The ones where the “MS fog” is too thick to read a book. Or where the pain and fatigue make even ordinary task into Olympian ones.

The ones where you’re doing everything the doctors have said, everything your friends have suggested, everything you can think of yourself – and nothing seems to change.

Oh, yes. We’ve been there.

Most of us have.

Not necessarily with chronic illness. But we’ve all had the situation that refused to yield. Professional frustration. Personal grief. A family situation that seems implacable. Whatever it is, it leaves you running in place, wondering if progress is possible. Wondering if progress even exists. As Shel Silverstein put it, in his dark take on The Little Engine That Could, “If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain’t enough!”

Funny enough, George Lucas himself had his own story there. He described his first six years in the film business as “hopeless.” His father had wanted him to go into office supplies instead, and for a little while, George may have been wondering if he was right.

“There are a lot of times where you sit and say ‘Why am I doing this? I’ll never make it,’” he said in an interview. “I’d borrowed money from my parents. I’d borrowed money from friends. It didn’t look like I was going to be able to pay anyone back.”

Then came American Graffiti. And a few years later, Star Wars – a film that almost everyone believed would bomb, including Lucas himself, until it spectacularly didn’t.

Stories change. Without warning.

Not without effort. Not without help – even Han needed a hand fixing the hyperdrive. And not with any guarantee.

But surprising things can happen if you give them the chance.

Heather and I have seen it. Not the magic “happy ever after” that leaves you with a gold medal, a space princess, and a three-picture deal. But victories that have let us grab back pieces of normality, and even become caregivers ourselves.

We dared to hope.

And hope, it turns out, can be a pretty impressive Force.

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Nation in Progress

For a moment, the show seems to be over. Then the fresh explosion comes. BOOM! Sound and fury light up the landscape until it feels like a battle in full swing, with moments of fiery brilliance giving way to a continuous background chatter, holding the floor until the next burst.

Watching Facebook is really something, isn’t it?

OK, maybe the comparison’s a little inaccurate. After all, even the longest Fourth of July fireworks show is eventually over. But our national fulmination never seems to end, always finding a new source of fuel. A Supreme Court ruling. An inept political remark. A decision to pull “The Dukes of Hazzard” reruns from the airwaves.

Squeeeeeeeeeeee-BOOM!

Between an unsettled nation and unsettled times, it can feel a little exhausting. It’s easy to wish for quiet, for stability, for a little time to make everything make sense before we have to go on to the next crisis.

It’s also about as foreign to this country as Justin Bieber in a Beatles movie.

Sorry for that image. But on this, I think even George Washington might agree. Once he got the tune to “Baby, Baby, Baby” out of his head, anyway.

I think it comes down to something simple: America should never be a comfortable place to live.

I don’t mean the landscape should look like something out of a Mad Max movie. And I’m certainly not suggesting a “Love it or Leave It” attitude that urges all dissenters to make a run for the border of their choice.

But America has always been a little more than a country. It’s a concept. A conversation. Even a dream.

And as such, it’s never really finished.

Once in a while, some pundit will appeal to the Founding Fathers and what they did or didn’t intend. My reaction is always the same: “Which Fathers?” To look at the American Revolution and the years that followed it is to see chaos in a bottle, a group of people that sometimes seemed unable to agree on the lunch bill.

Some wanted to save slavery, or to kill it. Some wanted 13 loosely tied sovereignties with little national leadership, while at least one wanted to do away with state governments all together. We were a year into our war against Britain before we could even agree on why we were fighting. Even our Constitution, venerated by many, is deliberately vague on several points – and had to be, so that everyone could think their side had won.

We are a wrangling people, in the middle of a country that’s always under construction. And that’s not going to change. We’re always working out what America means and we always should be. If we ever stop challenging each other, or being challenged, worry.

A free land should never be a quiet one.

Mind you, I’m not saying we have to be a bunch of rude, bumptious yahoos, either. Part of the constant struggle is that it’s a struggle to find a way forward, not just to make noise. There can be respect. There can be compromise. There can be intelligent consideration of the facts (I swear, even as the network news tries to say otherwise every night).

But what there can’t be is apathy. Or complacency. Even the loudest boor adds more (if maybe not much more) than the individual who steps out of the fight entirely.

The conversation has to go on. Even if it sometimes wakes the neighbors. Or, if we’re lucky, the nation.

Enjoy the fireworks. And don’t forget to light a few of your own.