A Marysville flag flies in front of the fireworks Saturday night at Ebey Waterfront Park (The flag was handmade by our team as a small passion project)
Last Saturday was the 4th of July, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Our town, beautiful Marysville, held a celebration at the Ebey Waterfront Park. At this event there was a scavenger hunt, wrestling, a concert, and of course fireworks! It was a lovely sunny day, perfect for such a momentous event like this.
I sat upon a hill with the rest of the paper as we watched everything happening below us. I truly had fun sitting in the grass, talking with everyone and soaking in the situation. The events were fun, the wrestling was great! Watching folks jump and slam into one another never gets tiring, and the band played country classics as the sun lowered into the sound. During all this I couldn’t help but think about the past, present, and future. Looking at the wrestling match I was reminded of my father, he was a huge wrestling fan. He wrote his college thesis on the subject. I think it was “The Semiotics of Wrestling and the WWE.” He passed away about 2 years ago, being born in 1965, he was 11 when the bicentennial happened. He gave me my love of history. He'd often sit me down on a warm Texas summer afternoon and tell me all there was to know, from Washington to Nixon and all the crazy things that happened in the world. I think we can all admit America has some problems. It never has been perfect, but the idea of the United States of America is something that should always be strived for. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, a country where all people are free, a place where men and women are equal, “...huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This is the America I grew up being told about. It might be childlike but I still believe in those ideas, and as the fireworks launched that night, I still hope for the future of our country. I imagine by the time of the Tricentennial, the big three-double-zero, our country will have new and strange problems, but we will also be one step closer to those original ideals.