It is still a good idea
This will be my 71st year to celebrate the birth of our nation. At least 65 of those years have been celebrated at Compass Lake, Florida. This week’s column comes out on July 2nd, which would have been my Grandmother Catharine’s 116th birthday.
It will also be our first Independence Day at the Lake without my mother, Jobie, who spent most of her 94 years swimming in these same waters.
The holiday follows a familiar rhythm. We decorate with flags and bunting, shoot fireworks off the dock like many others around the lake, and feast on ribs, baked beans, potato salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, pork chops, mac and cheese, and plenty of other starchy, unhealthy favorites. After all, it is the Fourth of July!!
We will slice watermelons, and several generations will gather on the dock for the seed-spitting contest. Later, there will be homemade ice cream topped with sprinkles and chocolate or caramel sauce.
Breakfast will include eggs, bacon, Conecuh sausage, cheese grits, biscuits, and mayhaw jelly. The next morning brings pancakes, more bacon and sausage, yogurt, granola, fruit, and a half dozen syrups sure to renew the debate over which one is best.
If eating seems central to the ritual, that is because it is. This is the Florida Panhandle, after all, and our family’s roots run deep through Georgia and Alabama. Food is woven into the Southern culture that ties the generations together.
We will tell stories — many of them. I am now the oldest in our family, yet our stories reach back to my great-grandparents, who passed down memories of their own parents from the Civil War years. I first heard those stories on the front porch of an earlier cottage on the lake.
We will surely remember Jobie and Big Dan, Grandmother Catharine and Granddaddy Joe, along with the many aunts, uncles, and cousins who have spent time at the lake.
Much of our time will also be spent recalling memories of the younger generations. The walls are filled with pictures of first jumps off the high dive, naps in the hammocks, and endless games played inside and out — all part of the long-woven fabric of our family.
Above it all, Old Glory will fly from the flagpole on the high dive. The flag still stirs something in me. I have lived through more than a quarter of our nation’s Independence Days, and with enough years behind you, it can feel as though you have seen it all.
I have not seen it all, but with hindsight, foresight, and a measure of hard-earned wisdom, I have formed firm opinions about our nation and the struggles it faces today.
I still seek the truth, though it grows harder to discern. I am tired of dissent and discord, and our nation seems just as weary of the divisions shadowing the 250th anniversary of this great experiment called democracy.
On our dock, beside a small spring-fed lake that has sustained our family for generations, there is no Red or Blue, no Democrat or Republican, not even right or wrong. There is only family, bound by ties stronger than the forces that try to pull us apart.
That is how it should be for our nation. We are Americans, joined by bonds that I hope remain stronger than the forces trying to divide us.
John Gunther once observed that the United States is the only nation deliberately founded on a good idea. We must not allow that idea to fail on our watch.
Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]
