If you don’t feel like “bearing with me,” I recommend spending some time looking at the Jorgensen Chevrolet car advertisement page here in The Pyramid. I often like to look at the vehicles pictured there and fantasize about owning them. Maybe you will too.

Anyway, as you can probably detect by the title of this piece, I’m looking at the calendar and seeing Independence Day coming right up on Friday. That makes me want to get into some sort of patriotic mood.

In elementary school, someone would sometimes ask, “How many countries have the 4th of July?” The answer, of course, was “all of them. They also have a 3rd of July and a 5th of July.”

In church Sunday, we sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” to start the meeting. Then we stood up and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to end the meeting. I happened to be up on the stand in front of the congregation of, I’d say, 250 people.

As we sang the national anthem, I was standing next to a guy who is one of the “uppity ups” of the Latter-day Saints in the area. I sang the first verse loudly and with gusto. It’s the only verse I know by heart, so it’s good the anthem with the other three verses is in the hymn book.

At the end of that familiar first verse, I might have said “Play Ball!” just a tad too loudly. It’s a habit. And old habits die hard. At the end of the meeting, the church leader said to me,

“Seems like you might be going to quite a few baseball games lately.”

I replied,

“Nope, just getting ready for football.”

It’s funny how I sometimes get my history mixed up. When thinking of the national anthem, I often remember that it was Francis Scott Key who wrote the song. This was after having witnessed more than 1,500 “rockets bursting in air.” And, after miraculously seeing the American flag still flying at Fort McHenry after the bombardment.

My mix-up? — I have continued to try to get it fixed in my head that the “Oh, say can you see” event happened during the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War. Mr. Key wrote the words to the song. Ironically, perhaps, the tune Francis Scott used was a quite well known drinking song written by (ahem) a Brit.

The song was popular for a long time. But it wasn’t until 1931 that Congress passed a bill to make it officially the national anthem. President Herbert Hoover signed the bill into law.

I’m sure I’m confused about many historical aspects of our country. As I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, I was in New England recently. While there, I brushed up a little bit on the story of the start of the Revolutionary War.

One of the things I learned was that it’s highly unlikely that Paul Revere called out, “The British are coming.” The colonists actually were British. It’s much more likely that his words may have been, “The regulars are coming out. (regulars being professional soldiers of the British standing army)”

A lot of the fighting on that April 19th day, 1775 (250 years ago) was hand to hand combat. It is believed that 49 colonists and 73 British were killed during the retreat of the redcoats back to Boston.

I don’t know how they arrive at some of the Revolutionary War statistics that I’ve seen. For instance, it’s believed that the Patriots were better shots than the British.

Muskets weren’t that accurate. From any semi-far distance, only about 2% of the shots fired hit what they were aiming at. That’s why much of the shooting took place at close range within 25 – 50 yards.

I’m hoping that we all feel a sense of pride in America as we approach our celebrations this week. Our independence was won at a high cost. The War of Independence lasted more than seven years.

George Washington gave the new Americans (including us, I believe) good advice. “You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.” He was all about unity – and not keen on political parties.

In the late 1990s, three Sanpete couples made a trip to Tennessee. It was a good time. Among other sights and doings, we saw Smoky Mountain National Park, visited Dollywood (I kept my eyes peeled, but no Dolly), and made a stop for a show in Sevierville.

That’s where Lee Greenwood built an 1,800 seat theater where he performed for five seasons before he went back on the road. (The theater is now a church) Whatever you think of Lee Greenwood otherwise, I believe that his “God Bless the U.S.A. – “I’m Proud to Be an American” song is unifying.

We all need to “thank our lucky stars” to be living in the U.S.A. It ain’t perfect, but it’s uniquely, historically the “guardian of freedom.”

Enjoy the holiday! Hooray for the red, white and blue! — Merrill

P.S. What do you eat on July 5th? Independence Day-Old Pizza.

Did you hear the one about the Liberty Bell? Yeah, it cracked me up too.