Happy Birthday #250

          July 4, 1955—A day I will never forget.  I was actually going to march in the Hinsdale Fourth of July holiday parade.  I was a member of Soukups Little League team, and we walked the parade route around downtown and back to the Memorial Building.  Sadly, as precocious nine- to twelve-year-olds, we were embarrassed to march in the parade but rather felt we should be watching the parade.  However, my dad, who was president of the Hinsdale Little League, thought otherwise, so march I did. 

          Now we watch our own grandchildren in parades, and it is always a gala time.  When you are in the 4th quarter, it is easy to get nostalgic about this great country in which we live.  TV has been full of brief anecdotes depicting our nation’s march to democracy and freedom.  It has been quite an adventure, and not all of it a bed of roses.  Some of the men who wrote the Constitution owned slaves but somehow were able to produce a document about freedom for all.  It would appear we are a work in progress to this day.  I find myself perplexed by representatives and senators in the U.S. Congress who, it appears, are working on legislation to make it more difficult to vote, not easier. 

          To me, it is pretty simple, every American of legal age should be allowed to vote, and our representatives should encourage that right and not make it more difficult.  But what do I know?  I’m just a member of the 4^th quarter fading from the scene.  Jeepers, I sound like General Douglas MacArthur who was fired by President Truman and then gave his famous farewell speech in which he said that he was just an old general fading away. 

          Progress has been made, at least for this once youngster.  No longer am I that little boy who didn’t want to march in the parade but rather a senior citizen proud to be an American.  Maybe it is melancholy or maybe patriotism, but when I watched the fireworks this year, I could feel those 250 years emblazoned in the sky.  My mind raced with thoughts of bravery over decades by men and women who fought in wars justified and not to make it possible for me to sit in my backyard with Diane sipping on a celebratory glass of champagne as we toasted all that is good about the nation in which we live.

          Being a member of the 4th quarter gives one the opportunity to reflect on what has gone on before.  I don’t know for sure what Thomas Jefferson and the others were thinking, but I’m sure glad he came up with the Declaration of Independence along with the committee of five consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.  Then followed George Washington and his valiant soldiers in the Revolutionary War.  All these men and women set the stage for what has followed and by and large, warts and all, it has been pretty darn glorious.

          Diane and I can travel freely, attend the church of our choice, live where we want, and simply enjoy all the freedoms we take for granted.  These have been a couple of tough years for our nation, but we will get through it and continue on our march through history.  As I get older, I realize that democracy is not a given, and we have to be vigilant in our pursuit of making it endure.  There are those who see it otherwise and are stalking around the country, even today, looking for ways to upend what has taken centuries to build.  As a member of the 4th quarter, I’m allowed to question the motives of those who see a different nation with rights and privileges reserved for only those of us who look a certain way.  I’m blond (or at least one time I was) and blue eyed, so apparently, I’m safe but what about others who don’t look like me.  I hope we find a way ahead to preserve freedom for all. 

          Ours is a land of fecundity and promise.  We have enjoyed it for 250 years.  I wonder if that will be true in 2276.  I hope so.  Really, it is simple.  Our good fortune is all around us.  When I take my daily walk, I see flowers and trees and birds.  I wave to people; they wave back.  I never worry about my freedom as a member of this great nation.  Like others, I take so much for granted.  Diane, Ryan, and I were in France a few years back, and we made the trip to Normandy.  We walked the beaches, saw the pill boxes, and gazed at Pointe du Hoc.  I once asked history professor Dr. Victor Hicken who was on the first wave of that fateful day, how we ever established a beach head.  He looked at me and said, “Gordon, we just kept coming.”  We both got a little tearful. 

The three Taylors concluded our day in Normandy by walking through the cemetery where 9,389 Americans found their final resting place.  When they play “Taps” and you look out all those white crosses, everyone cries openly at what these soldiers did to preserve the American Dream.  They all made the ultimate sacrifice. 

          If I could go back to that parade in 1955, I’d tell young Gordy Taylor to stand tall and be grateful that he can march in celebration of a great nation in which he lives. Not everyone in this universe has that privilege and opportunity.   Happy 4^th of July to everyone.  God bless America.