A 4th of July Thoughts of the Day

My mom and dad in 1945

A few thoughts to jump start your Saturday morning:

Today we celebrate the 250^th birthday of the United States of America, an experiment in governing like no other in the history of the world. On this day in 1776, delegates from 13 colonies met in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress and unanimously voted to declare independence from England, the only true super power in the world at that time. The men who signed that sacred document were willing to risk their lives and fortunes for the concept of liberty. Some 87 years later at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln called it government of the people, by the people and for the people as he led a divided country through the turbulence of a civil war. Somehow, the union prevailed and continues to exist to this day.

Ronald Reagan called America the shining city on the hill. Like no one else before or after, Ray Charles sang “thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.”

Despite all the difficulties that plague our nation, this is still the place that the world looks to as the standard bearer for freedom, innovation, opportunity and leadership. This is still the place where if we don’t like the people who lead us we have the opportunity to vote them out of office and bring in new people with new ideas. We live in one of the very few places on earth that someone with an idea, determination and a willingness to overcome any obstacle in the way can go from absolutely nothing to immense wealth.

I’ve been blessed to travel the world, 62 countries so far. I’ve had the chance to see things and experience things that I could only imagine when I was growing up. In the fifth grade class of Miss Tillis at Lake Mary Elementary I sat in the very back where in my free time I could thumb through her collection of National Geographic magazines. She began subscribing back in the 1930s so she had more than 200 magazines. Those magazines inspired me to travel to remote places that I saw in the photos and I’ve seen so much more.

Every place I have traveled I have learned something that went far beyond any description or photo in a magazine. I’ve learned to appreciate the cultures of the nations of the world, but in discovering what makes each country and its people unique, I’ve learned what makes America so special. Today’s media hits us with a constant negative barrage about how the United States is perceived around the world. My travels – at least to the countries I have visited – have taught me that our media doesn’t tell us the truth. Everywhere I’ve been people ask about life in America, punctuated by their own dream of somehow making their own dreams come true in cites, towns and states that we too often take for granted.

Years ago when my mother and stepfather had a ministry at their Gainesville church for international students and immigrants from around the world, I got a chance to pick up a Cambodian family on a Sunday morning. Driving them to church I listened as they told me about their escape from the maniacal Pol Pot, who turned entire villages into mass graves. They lived in subsidized government housing in Gainesville. “Our children’s friends say we are so poor,” they told me. “We tell our children we are so rich. We had nothing in Cambodia, now we have freedom to make a better life.” From subsidized housing and clothes from the Salvation Army they worked hard, sent their kids to the University of Florida and became independently wealthy.

Only in America.

On this day I think about my father, a pharmacist mate/medic on the USS Chemung during World War II. The Chemung was a tanker, first owned by John D. Rockefeller. Tankers and troop ships were the prized targets of the German U-boats so each crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was fraught with danger. Mr. Rockefeller had the foresight to double hull his tankers so they could stay afloat even when hit by a torpedo.

One evening at our home in Sanford, my dad and several friends sat around our dining table drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and doing serious damage to a large pot filled with boiled peanuts. I remember like it was yesterday my dad talking about how the Chemung took a torpedo while crossing the Atlantic, its tanks filled with gasoline. They limped into England, the hole in the outside hull repaired quickly and then sailed off to the English Channel where they were a gas station for the landing craft that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. The Chemung doubled as a hospital ship so that the incoming landing craft dropped off the wounded and departed with a filled tank. My dad spent the next three days sewing up and removing bullets from wounded soldiers.

“As soon as we sewed them up, kids were begging us to let them get back into the fight with their buddies and brothers,” my dad recalled. “The channel was red with blood and dead bodies floated in the water. Wave after wave of kids stormed ashore with bullets flying and explosions everywhere. American kids were fighting a war to free up people whose countries had been taken from them by the Nazis. They knew the odds were they would die but they believed it was worth fighting for. They believed America was worth fighting for.”

America was worth fighting for then, just as it is worth fighting for today. There is no country like this anywhere on earth. If America is as bad as some would have you believe why is it people from all over the world are willing to leave everything behind and risk their lives to come here? This is still the place that symbolizes what is good in this world, the place that inspires people to come with nothing for the concept of being free enough to be a proud American citizen.

Today as we not only celebrate the birth of our nation but a future limited only by our own imagination, my prayer is that we will appreciate what our forefathers were willing to fight and die for. This is the Fourth of July, a day to celebrate the greatest nation in the history of the world where we have freedoms that make us the envy of the world. While you are celebrating, do yourself a favor. Call a parent, a sibling, a relative or a friend with whom there is a strained relationship. Mend the fences. Say I love you. Tell them how you appreciate living in a country that gives the freedom to humbly ask for and dole out forgiveness.

You won’t regret it.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: I am a confessed non-soccer purist who has tried and failed to embrace the world’s game even to the point of being a dutiful Arsenal season ticket holder when Mayfaire House in Shepherd’s Market in London’s West End was my stomping grounds back in 1997. For the most part, I find soccer only slightly more interesting than using the leaf blower to clean off the patio of my Lake Eustis condo.

Friday night, however, I got caught up in a soccer match like never before. I found myself openly cheering for Cape Verde, which pushed World Cup super power Argentina almost to its breaking point before falling, 3-2, in extra time. Cape Verde is a group of 10 small islands off the coast of Africa, which, at 1,557 square miles makes it only slightly larger than Rhode Island. The population, less than 500,000, is about the size of Raleigh.  

Cape Verde was little David going against soccer’s Goliath. Argentina, nearly 50 million people living in the eighth largest country in the world in terms of land mass, has won three World Cups and finished second three times. Argentina boasts the greatest goal scorer in the history of the World Cup in Messi. Think of him as you would Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth.

Messi scored Argentina’s first goal in almost routine fashion in the first half and throughout the match even non-soccer purists could easily distinguish why he is considered by many the greatest of all time. He was everything he’s cracked up to be and yet Cape Verde refused to tremble in awe. Its goalie Vozinha protected the net with almost superhuman anticipation. When Sidny Cabral of Cape Verde scored on an impossible shot from left of the goal just inches from the outstretched fingers of the Argentinian goalie, knotting the score at 2-2 in the extra time, the impossible dream seemed reachable.

The impossible dream was brought back to reality by Messi, whose corner kick curved and found the head of a teammate who leaped a couple inches higher than everyone else in a pack to the right of the Cape Verde goal. Argentina’s fans teared up as they celebrated, saved from going down in what would have been the World Cup’s greatest upset ever. For Argentina’s fans the final whistle was like the warden calling a split second before the switch is pulled to electrocute a prisoner strapped into the electric chair. For Cape Verde fans the call came too late. The switch was pulled and the hopes of an entire nation were fried.  

My emotions collapsed at the final whistle. That part of me that cannot resist cheering for the Don Quixotes of the sports world begged for another five minutes to give Cape Verde one more chance to even things up so the match could be decided by penalty kicks. I hate penalty kicks, one more reason why soccer ranks snake’s belly low on my 1-to-10 scale of watchable sports, but my heart was telling me if only Cape Verde could somehow, anyhow, get to penalties, the pride of the entire population of a tiny nation in the Atlantic Ocean could soar higher than one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets could take it.

Now, did this match change my mind and turn me into a soccer fan? Not really. For every match that ends with the color drained from my knuckles there are a hundred whose only saving grace is the passion of the fans. Argentina-Cape Verde had the passion of the fans but it also had the adrenaline rush of a less talented team proving it belonged among the best of the best. I watched and I’m glad I did.