Wednesday :: 10 March 2010 :: 04:41 PM
290 days to Christmas!
Fourth Of July Fact
Why do we celebrate Independence Day on July 4?
All kinds of history books and reference books will explain that the federal holiday celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring our independence from Great Britain. However, while that day is celebrated as the day of independence, it really is not. Our nation officially became independent on Sept. 3, 1783, when the British King George III and the American leaders signed the Treaty of Paris.
-- from Land Line magazine, published by OOIDA. July 2007 page 106.
This next commentary is from the same magazine and page. It is an excerpt from an article by Pete Rigney, the Silver Fox:
". . . Every time I read the original document [Ed - Declaration of Independence], I get goose bumps. I think about a little remembered delegate named Richard Henry Lee, a farmer from Westmoreland County, VA. Lee took on the whole British Empire when he introduced a motion that declared we were free from all allegiance to the British Crown on June 7, 1776. Talk about guts!
"John Adams seconded the motion. Thomas Jefferson penned the first draft based on Lee's outline. Ben Franklin and Adams made a few more changes and we were on our way with the noble experiment. Eventually we would become the most powerful nation in the world.
"Thank you, Richard Henry Lee. Thank you, signers who put it on the line for all of us. . ."
Random Humor: Another Fishing Story
I have never been good at fishing. Over the years I have discovered there are only two kinds of fishermen: those who fish for sport and those who catch something.
I've never figured out, when I fish, if I am drowning worms or teaching them to fish.
I usually stop at the fish store on the way home and have him toss me a fish so I can say I caught it.
I used to go fishing with my sister's father-in-law, Bill. Every time we went out he'd be picking these things out of the water left and right. I would sit there in amazement wondering what his secret was.
One day I got up early to get to our fishing spot by myself, thinking I might catch something with one less pole in the water. Hours went by without a nibble when suddenly, a fish leaps up to the side of my boat and says, "Hey where's Bill?"
An old high school friend was visiting and we decided to go fishing. We were just sitting above the river with our lines in the water when my friend says, "Hey, twenty bucks on the person who catches the first fish."
"You're on," I says.
Soon I got a nibble and became so excited that I fell into the water.
"Hold everything! yelled my friend. "If you're going to dive for them the bet's off."