My wife thinks all the fireworks is for her. Her birthday is July 3. Her Dad’s birthday was July 2^nd so for years the Patriotic holiday just turned into a 3 day Birthday Party. By the 4^th we were still so drunk that we said Happy Birthday to you America too. Is the day so important or is the event important? One thing that is for sure is that when America wants to celebrate, America can do it well. It even says on the Declaration of Independence that we should celebrate.

John Adams the founding father who later became our second President put the day down on the 2^nd but the Continental Congress approved the day on the 4^th. The document was written by Thomas Jefferson our 3^rd President. For John Adams the true holiday was the 2^nd the day Congress actually voted on Independence. He wrote about it in a letter he wrote to his wife dated July 3^rd 1776. 240 years ago today.                                                                                                                                                  In the letter he wrote, “ I believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding celebrations as the years of the great anniversary move on. It ought to be showed with pomp and circumstance with games and parades. I believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding celebrations to come with barnfires, guns and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forevermore.”

And so our Independence is celebrated on July 4^th. For the rest of his life John Adams declined to take part in any July 4^th celebrations. But in the end the 4^th sought him out.  On July 4^th 1826, the very same day as Thomas Jefferson on the 50^th Anniversary of the first celebrations,  they BOTH DIED. Can we say this country took the living daylights out of them?  Have a brew in honor of those two hard working men for this country today too along with her birthday.