By Staff
The Fourth of July has always been a special holiday for our nation.
The same holds true for me.
It has always been a time for fun, cooking out, swimming and, of course, seeing a good fireworks show.
It means watching hot dog eating contests on ESPN, sleeping late and heading to the lake.
For many people it means daylight baseball games at major league stadiums.
There is so much to do that many people build their vacations around it.
It is easy to forget what the celebration is all about.
Sadly, that is the case for most holidays, including Christmas and Easter, two holidays whose meaning changed the world forever.
We often get carried away doing our own things and enjoying time off from work and with our families that we forget why we are celebrating.
Not too long ago I watched a HBO series about John Adams, our second president. It documented many of the founding fathers of our nation and what they went through to get us the freedom that we have.
When they wrote the Declaration of Independence they basically put their lives on the line.
Although many of those signers never fired a shot during the Revolutionary War, they certainly would have been hanged had the colonists not won their independence.
The same honor and respect should be shown to all others who served in our armed forces to maintain our freedom when there were times it could have been lost.
As we shoot fireworks and watch the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on TV, we must remember what this holiday is all about.
If not for the freedom this one represents, we might not live in a place where we could openly celebrate those other days, such as Christmas and Easter.
It is a special time for us all, but we cannot get carried away and forget just what happened for us on that particular July 4th in 1776.