The 4th of July Brings it out in all of us, doens’t it?

Our Childhoods. . . .

DO YOU REMEMBER:

What it was like. . .to be 8. . . ?

Let’s go to McDonald’s and think that it’s a five-star restaurant.  Let’s sail sticks across fresh mud puddles and make different size ripples with different size rocks. . .

Let’s make M&M’s better than money–just because you can eat them; lets play dodge ball and be really messy when we paint with watercolors. . .

Let’s lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand. . .

Let’s return to a time when life was severely simple; when all we knew were colors, multiplication tables, nursery rhymes, but it made no matter because we didn’t know and didn’t care all that much, either. . .

All we were at 8 were happy because we were mostly unaware of all the things that could ever make us upset or worried. . .

For maybe just a quick moment during this 4th of July, lets remember when we thought that the world was mostly fair and that everyone was honest and that are imaginations were vividly real and even so much more possible. . .

When. . .when did it happen. . .this thing of growing up. . .maturing?  Now there’s Isis, and Wall Street, weapons and prejudice and abused children; there’s lies and unhappy marriages and the questions of who should marry; there’s pain, illness. . .there’s death. . .

What happened to that time when we thought that everyone would live forever because only plants and maybe sometimes a goldfish or a pet died; remember when the worst thing that ever happened was when we lost our only baseball or someone lost the jump rope or, heaven forbid, we were actually picked last for the kickball game?

Let’s go back to those days when we were addicted to hide-and-go-seek instead of our smart phones and apps. . .

Let’s go back to those days when we actually thought that everyone was happy, just because we were. . .

Let’s go back to those afternoons where we climbed trees and fences and rode bikes; where time, bills, or where we were going to get the money to fix__________________; where we wondered what we would be when we grew up and never worried about a Plan B if it didn’t work out. . .

Let’s have day without computer crashes and paperwork, depressing news, doctor bills, gossip, sickness and loss of loved ones; where the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination and snowball fights really heal and mean something. . .

Let’s Remember the only problem we ever had about the Merry-g0-Round wasn’t ever getting on, but having to get off?

Yeah. . .the 4th of July takes me back there

Hmmmmmmm. . .sometimes the 5th, 18th and 30th does, too. . .

Y        O        U  ?