You're a grand old flag,
You're a high flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave.
You're the emblem of
The land I love.
The home of the free and the brave.
Ev'ry heart beats true
'neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there's never a boast or brag.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.
Music and lyrics by George M. Cohan
On this Forth of July I want to share with you a great story told by Charles Kuralt about the man...NOT the beer.
Revolutionary War Patriot Samuel Adams Destroys Personal Letters on July 8, 1776
The American Revolutionary War patriots put their lives on the line once they signed the Declaration of Independence. This was, in effect, an act of treason, which could of cost them their lives. Sending private letters criticizing the British Crown, being caught with questionable letters in one's possession might also have sent one to the gallows. No one was more aware of that than Massachusetts patriot Samuel Adams.
Noted journalist Charles Kuralt tells a delightful story, on the occasion of the nation's Bicentennial on July 4, 1976, about what Sam Adams did in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776, after hearing the Declaration of Independence read in public there. That was the first public reading of the Declaration to occur.
"I like the way Sam Adams celebrated. That 20-[year] old Massachusetts architect of revolution had agitated for independence, you know, for years, back in the 1760s and 70s. He had sat through it all, the debates of the spring and the summer in Philadelphia. And finally he experienced the thrill-- for him it must really have been a thrill of signing the Declaration of Independence. Now it had been read in public for the first time. It was the 8th of July in Philadelphia and that old town exploded with the news. Bonfires were burning, church bells were ringing, and people were cheering all over town."
"Sam Adams was celebrating inside himself. He walked back to his boarding house, Mrs. Yard's in Arch Street, and took up a bundle of letters he had received from friends and patriots down the years. These were letters which might hang those friends now, if they ever fell into the hands of the British."
"Sam Adams spent a long time with a pair of scissors, snipping those letters into tiny bits. He opened his second-story window, so that he could look down on the chaos in the street below, and quite thoughtfully and quietly, he let those little bits of paper fly by the handsful and fluttered down on the celebration--confetti for a new nation. Then quite tired and quite satisfied, Sam Adams closed the window and went to sleep. Maybe we don't need fireworks. Maybe some small private act of celebration is enough."
To learn much more about the Fourth of July, please visit James R. Heintze at...
Fourth of July Celebrations Database
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