The local Freedom Festival was last weekend. It’s always held the weekend before July 4th and usually on the hottest weekend of the year. Freedom Festival 2005 was no exception. It was 98 degrees in the shade.
Perversely, I was reminded of Valley Forge. Many years ago, during one of Indiana’s coldest winters, I read a book about Valley Forge and George Washington’s soldiers. I sat huddled under an afghan in a drafty, but heated, apartment and read about men who were huddled around meager campfires, rags bound around their feet because marching had worn out their farming boots. Rations were in short supply, clothes were threadbare. Why did these men stay under those conditions? Why had they left their homes to fight for unproven ideas and a strange concept of liberty?
I have heard that they wanted to make George Washington king, but he refused. Washington believed that the strength of America was, and would always be, the people. Two hundred years later, I bow to no man nor to any woman because I am an American.
To all the Valley Forge soldiers, all the Revolutionary soldiers, and the families that sacrificed for them, I say thank you. I hope you know it was worth it. Happy birthday, America,
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
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