Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry
I am sitting on my porch this morning of June 20, 2022, enjoying a cup of coffee, and also enjoying an unusually cool beautiful late June morning.
We had a great spring with plenty of rain and cool weather which has blessed East Tennessee with some of the lushest green foliage and beautiful flowers spread over our beautiful state with gorgeous sunrises for all to enjoy at no cost.
This beauty is a gift from the Creator that he built in with his blueprint for this earth and to be enjoyed by another of his creations called humankind.
While enjoying the creator’s gifts my mind wanders back to my life during the 1990s. My second career was as a long-haul truck driver for La-Z-Boy Furniture based in New Tazewell, Tennessee.
One of my favorite trips was to upstate New York and especially to the Finger Lakes Region. I enjoyed Seneca Lake and the village of Watkins Glen, New York. I probably made that trip six times a year.
Watkins Glen is a small town with friendly people who are proud of their town and this country known as the USA. Watkins Glen is known for its auto racing which runs from June ’til October at the Watkins Glen International Racetrack. Both Nascar and SCCA cars race there from summer ’til fall.
One of my trips to Watkins Glen was during the Fourth of July. After unloading at the La-Z-Boy Store, I drove by Clute Park on Seneca Lake in Watkins Glen. The city was having a Fourth of July celebration.
There were thousands of people enjoying the celebration with a complete band playing patriotic marches and John Phillip Sousa military marches. Everyone was dressed up, even the kids. I parked the truck across from Clute Park and walked over and enjoyed an hour of the celebration celebrating the 13 colonies’ break from England and the upcoming struggle to become the United States of America. This celebration at Clute Park in Watkins Glen reminded me how fortunate we are to be living in the USA.
Checking our history, the Fourth of July celebration actually started in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which at the time was our capital, on July 2, 1776, when the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from the crown of England.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, “I am apt to believe that Independence Day will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
The Declaration of Independence was approved July 4, 1776, and became known as Independence Day.
On August 2, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 delegates from the 13 colonies at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The youngest delegate was Thomas Lynch age 26. The oldest delegate was Benjamin Franklin at age 70. The authors of the Declaration of Independence were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Freemasons who signed the Declaration were 18-confirmed and 10-professed but unable to confirm. (A total of 28.)
The 13 colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence were Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia.
The Revolutionary War followed the Declaration of Independence between the 13 colonies and England. There was great sacrifice and suffering by the citizen’s army of the colonies against the British army, who used Hessian soldiers of fortune to fight against the colonial citizen’s army.
My mind on this early morning swings back to that Fourth of July and the celebration at Clute Park in Watkins Glen. I admired the people celebrating and keeping that remark by John Adams that this day should be celebrated forever more.
How about you county mayors, city council members, county commissioners, businessmen and citizens—don’t you think it’s about time to have more than barbecues, going to the lakes and beaches, and start planning an Independence Day celebration for the Fourth of July for the year 2023.