Big Planes, Big Plans

The 4th of July has always meant a get-together with family and friends. For the past 5 years or so, this has meant our family has joined a larger gathering at a friend's well-situated hilltop house. Good food, conversation, beer and wine (to aid the conversation), and a front row seat to distant official fireworks, and a grand view of the local unofficial pyrotechnics that light up the neighborhood. Good fun, with only the slightest hint of law-flaunting rebellion to remind us what Independence Day is all about.

This year, due to a confluence of events things were quite different: our children, both firmly into their teenage years, vanished to spend the 4th with their friends, and our friend decided that hosting the 4th was too much this year, the energy budget being largely expended on other events (the financial budget a bit weakened too).

So my wife and I spent the day mostly alone, which once upon a time would have meant together and engaging in activities best done with just the two of us on the premises. Time and circumstance have ways of warping events and best-laid plans, however, so we found ourselves on separate (but spatially collocated) tracks this 4th.

After all, we had the dogs to deal with, one of whom demands more attention than both kids together on Christmas morning. We also had our separate hobbies: my wife a good book and an addiction to iPhone solitaire; me watching motorcycles race halfway around the world (in my defense - there were Americans involved).

Somehow, the self-involvement of the day didn't bother me too much (I can't vouch for the wife who still hasn't really surfaced from the book). After all, I had just returned from most of two weeks spent in Canada. A lovely country with great people but one which nevertheless reminds me how fortunate I am to live in the USA. There's just something about a place that looks so similar but is actually so foreign that will make you reflect on your country and culture. So, relaxing into the day and not trying too hard to celebrate seemed natural enough.

Until the whole house began to shake and vibrate like the 'Big One' was on the way. Shattering our cones of silence, the wife and I merged at the back door in shared concern. A step out and a look up revealed the largest plane I'd seen since, well, since I'd last seen that type of plane at an air show 20 years before. This was a military cargo jet, probably a C-17, one of the largest planes to ever fly (I won't say 'grace the skies', because nothing that large and noisy can ever be said to 'grace' anything).

With the assurance that the 'Big One' (earthquake, that is) was not happening, my wife returned to her recreation. Airplanes are only necessary travel devices to her, and hold no other significance or joy. Loving planes myself, I watched as the 'Big One' (plane, that is) disappeared into the distance, but with my inner smile reflex stifled by reflection on the absurdity of the fly-over:

Why do we always celebrate our independence, which was won by a rebel mob over an organized military superpower, by displaying evidence that we are an organized military superpower?

Do we celebrate the 4th in memory of those ragged recruits who risked everything for a chance at freedom? Or out of fear, and a need for reassurance?

It's my hope the day holds at least an element of remembering our long-ago heroes, and isn't just a thumping of spears against shields.

Maybe next year our friend will be up to hosting the party again. A touch of rebelliousness will be welcome.