Editor’s Note: Reader Diary is a periodic column written by local residents, Surry County natives, and readers of The Mount Airy News. If you have a submission for Reader Diary, email it to John Peters at jpeters@mtairynews.com
Being an old-soldier and a native son, it’s burned in my soul that “Old Glory” should forever fly high in our sky; not only on the Fourth of July, but every day of every year. No matter our problems or our station in life, we live in a land where we are free to go when, where and if we please, and do most anything we please, as long as it interferes with no one else’s right to do the same.
I “rode into town” a very long time ago and cannot remember a time when some dire calamity was not about to wipe us off the face of the Earth. The time was coming soon, when (if we did not worship a certain way) we were headed for he— in a hand basket and there would be no coming back. The same was true at election time, if we did not vote a certain way, the whole United States of America was going down the drain.
As of today (all these many years later) neither of those awful things have come to pass and we are still doing our thing; each in our own way. Yes, we have multitudes of problems and they began the day our first ancestors stepped off the boat. In their vast wisdom, they almost totally destroyed the Native Americans who were here thousands of years before Columbus headed west. Even worse, a few hundred years later, we almost destroyed ourselves in our own Civil War.
On this July Fourth, once again, it’s time to celebrate our independence from Great Britain, so what are we waiting for? Let’s build a bon fire, roast some hot dogs, shoot some fireworks and parade down Main Street in our “Sunday Best.” No matter how we celebrate, let the good times roll and let’s not forget to be thankful for who we are, where we are and all we have to be thankful for.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com