INDEPENDENT PICCOLOS

Nobody's Opinion; July the 4th is our birthday. It's America's birthday. It's so much more exciting than my own birthday, that I've decided to change my birth date to July, the Fourth. People change their names all the time. I think they should be able to change their birthdays too. How many times have you read your horoscope and thought, "Boy... is she off, that's not me at all! --- I'm more like an Aquarius, bordering on the cusp between a Scorpion and a Goat!" In fact, I think you should be able to pick the best news horoscope of the day and go with it. The world would be happier.

I don't think my mother would mind. After all, I've heard the story about how much blood she lost giving birth to me so many times I feel I deserve a chance at redemption. And since nobody in my family thinks my being born was anything but a nuisance anyway, they won't mind if I change it either.

My motto; do not pass up any moments of self-righteousness in life---it's too much fun.

But on the Fourth there is all the pomp and circumstance that there should be. It’s the only day that we really come together as Americans. The rest of the year we are fighting, split into groups by our elected politicians for better control. The old divide and conquer deal. On the Fourth, we look up at the beautiful fireworks and become kids again. And being the patriotic sop that I am, when the ending to the fireworks display comes, and John Phillip Souza’s Star and Stripes Forever is bursting loud and clear from some expensive sound system, I start crying...trying desperately to hold back the flood when I hear those damn piccolos come in at the end...and I'm always embarrassed if a tear escapes down my face. No, I'm not a trickle crier, I'm a tsunami ---a real black wave of sticky mascara bursting onto a field of Revlon stay on until it turns into clay makeup... glad that it's dark and hoping nobody sees the maudlin thankfulness for freedom that I feel, because in this day and age it is definitely not cool to cry at the Stars and Stripes.

It's also not cool to look like a raccoon dressed in red, white, and blue. And don't expect your husband or any friend to tell you just how bad your face looks, because after a few drinks they are probably not going to tell you why everyone is staring at you in revenge for the time that you didn't tell them that their tag was hanging out of the back of their shirt, or the time they walked around with toilet paper stuck on one shoe for 20 minutes, while you, of course, never noticed even though you were sober.

On my new birthday I can also celebrate the fact that the Stars and Stripes forever is very seldom ever played live. I'm always grateful when the song is recorded, because the piccolo part, (the piccolo obviously being invented just for the purpose of this song) if performed live, might suffer from an inebriated piccolo player, who maybe thought it was
his birthday too. And instead of the wonderful feelings of patriotism, I would be cursing the unknown piccolo player for depriving me from that one moment of emotional bliss. (I know, sick)

My own mother never missed an opportunity to tell me how rough she had it while giving birth to me. What my mother needed in her moments of birthing torture was to hear The Stars and Stripes of John Phillip Sousa's.

I propose that the best stereo surround-sound systems available be installed in all delivery rooms to deliver an uplifting recording of the Stars and Stripes forever at every birth. It should be a federal mandate. If the first sound the babies hear is a piccolo, it might make all the difference in the world in the future of democracy.

And usually at the moment that I'm pretending not to cry at the finale...I think of our country and how the history of our hero’s have been recently tarnished and trashed (which adds to the deluge) and thank God that my favorite founding father was not popular enough to be included. I’m talking about John. Mr. Adams. The obnoxious, stubborn, opinionated, shit disturber, founding piccolo, John Adams.

Not many people think of John Adams on the Fourth. They were not taught in our public school system that if not for him on that hot day in July, when he argued Jefferson’s Declaration (because Mr. Jefferson had no talent for talking) for hours during a thunderstorm, that it was time to declare independence... now or never. Without the power of his words and the strength of his convictions, all his love and all his hate (I like to think of that scene in Ghost), all his passion, and years of hard study and hours upon hours of hard work, those men might have gone home.

After all, these men were in real fear of their own deaths, and the perhaps brutal deaths of their families and friends, not to mention all their property and possessions. That last push, by the leader of the orchestra (as Mr. McCullough has put it) helped these men take a step into the frightening unknown...to sign the Declaration of Independence and start this new country called America. John was not the best looking of the bunch, but he was a real piccolo. The best.

Mr. Adams was on more committee’s than anyone in Congress. In fact, he was so busy he left the writing of the Declaration of Independence to Jefferson. (Years later he thought he could have done it better.) AND, had it not been for John and his cousin Sam nominating George Washington to be the commanding General of this new Continental Army...who knows what would have happened? We might have ended up a nation of body surfers, tea drinkers, and bad television.

Not many think about the sacrifices John made personally. He spent years (10) in Europe, working for independence...away from his family. When he was having trouble in Paris getting any work done...(while Franklin and Jefferson were partying) he decided to make better use of his time by going to Holland from Paris, in the middle of winter (remember this was by horse and carriage) to secure the much needed loans for America in order for us to win the war. He could have just hung around sipping champagne. Someone had to be practical.

Did he get many thanks in history for that? No. Have you seen the great monument in Washington D.C. to honor John Adams? No, me neither.

George Washington was the true symbolic father of our country, and for that he certainly deserved that (pretty boring) monument in D.C.. He put his life on the line and more so. But, Jefferson on the other hand, pretty much stayed in hiding on his beloved Monticello during the war. For that he gets a monument all his own, surrounded by cherry trees, and a lake which even the pigeons do not dare to spoil.

Political essayists everywhere have hope.

Jefferson was also very much what we would call today "an elitist." He was a Democrat (started the party, which was called Republican at the time, but don't tell the Democrats) and loved the French. (No wonder Clinton has his middle name) Still, when we think of the Fourth, we think of Jefferson. That great document leaves no doubt that he had a wonderful talent for writing, and in the end, was a true Patriot. But that document was forged by many men, and many minds, not just Jefferson... and the people of America had lived independently since they got off the boats. So they knew freedom, and they were not about to give it up. Not for all the tea in Boston. (Sorry)

Jefferson unpatriotically attacked John Adams throughout his life, until John in his magnanimity and great heart forgave him in their old age. John was hoping that by their letters history might remember him too, like the piccolos at the end of the song.

Adams never lauded his achievements, and unlike the other two founding fathers, Washington and Jefferson, he kept no slaves on principle. John Adams, not Thomas Jefferson, should be the beloved favorite founder of the American black people.

And John made sure that the music was passed onto his son, John Quincy Adams, who won the freedom for the Amistad slaves. JQA spent his whole life fighting the Southerners (Democrats and slaveholders) in Congress to get rid of the gag rule. The rule that kept slavery from even being discussed. Year---after year---after year, he played every legal trick in the book against this gag rule. Day after day. To stand up to jeers and screams of hatred everyday for years from your peers is no small feat. But, finally, near the end of his life, he succeeded at least to get the subject of slavery discussed on the floor of Congress. He set the first legal steps to freedom for the slaves, by his tenacity and inherited belief in justice and independence for all men, his fathers' true son...this family of piccolos.

John Adams would have thought it absolutely ludicrous that the power games that the politicians and the government play now, with the billions of dollars involved, and the ultimate control over much of the world, would not produce corruption. He and the other founding fathers knew this and were trying to prevent it with the checks and balances. It was why the Electoral College was invented. It's why a republic was formed instead of a democracy. They would have expected conspiracy theories, and murders, corruption and more. The differences are in the character of men. And time after time, the process has worked. John knew and said it would, even in its darkest hour, he knew the system was as solid as a rock. He witnessed the proving of it in his own lifetime.

So, tonight as I look at the sky, I will once again, thank Mr. Adams, for his vision, for his honesty, for the life he gave to this country, to which he sacrificed his own happiness, and didn't even get a small statue. More than any of the founders, John was most like us...the common men and women of America. He was truly at home on his beloved farm in Braintree. He was the quiet and tireless worker, the man who showed up everyday to oil the wheels of freedom, like the men and woman who go to work everyday, pay their taxes, love their families, believe in God, and send their sons and daughters to die for freedom. It's the common man who plays the piccolo in this finale of freedom. It's the common people of America who give all the rich and powerful the instruments---we know the song....some of them are deaf so we just need to turn up the volume.

So, while we forget about our differences, let's tell our children while waiting for the fireworks about the forgotten John Adams. Tell the kids about the important words that he spoke one Fourth of July, not long before he died, (Which was on the nations' 50th anniversary a few hours after Jefferson.) When asks for a comment on the day... he said, characteristically: “Independence Forever.” Jefferson of course wrote a very long, wonderful, flowery speech.

Not Global World Nations, Not United Nations, Not a New Progressive Third Way, Not anything but American Independence... Forever…as citizens, as Americans, as individuals, as lovers of freedom. Anything else leads to infinity of silence, where children will not need parents or fireworks, men will not need freedom, and women will not need Kleenex.

“Independence Forever, Nothing more, nothing less.”

Hey did you hear a piccolo? Me too.

Oh hell, just pass the whole box.

Happy Fourth.