The Glorious Fourth

Hope that all out there had a most excellent Fourth of July. Mine was outstanding, esp. as it is the first I have had here in the States knowing that I will not be returning to the United Kingdom. I am here to stay, in other words, and this gives the Fourth a certain tabasco-like bite. As Jim Lileks says, grilled meats, gunpowder, the outdoors...what's not to like?

One thing I have noticed since my return to the USA on D-Day is the massive increase of patriotic decoration over previous National Holiday Seasons. Quite frankly, and I don't mean to accuse anyone, there is a lot more bunting out there. Some (in a Wall Street Journal piece, to be precise) have attributed this to the desire to decorate the house whenever, for whatever reason. Fourth of July decorations, in other words, are the logical extension of Halloween decorations, and it is all part of a process that means that soon we will have special Columbus Day decorations. Well, I don't think so. I think that is the supply meeting a demand. My first trips to the States after 9/11 showed me that people were hanging flags in new ways that I had hitherto seen only in the Boy Scout Fieldbook. There were, for example, lots of vertically hung flags, something I had never much seen before. Now there is bunting galore, swags upon serried swags of it. Sure, the bunting factories are pumping the stuff out, 24/7. But there is demand. From the looks of it, the month of June, in between Memorial Day and the Fourth as it is, now has become the patriotic equivalent of Advent.