Two blocks from independence

July 5, 2007

Dear Robyn and Frank,

Greetings from America. We're sorry you were in Denmark for the Fourth and didn't want you feel left out of the celebration, so we had a Fourth of July party on your front porch. We set off some fireworks in your honor.

Your porch was turned into a patriotic fantasy. DC and Gail hung red, white and blue bunting, red rope lights, and red, white and blue stars on the walls. Little American flags were here and there. Don brought over a large flag and hung it from your roof. Don's father was in the Navy. The flag draped his coffin at his funeral.

DC thought about moving the red, white and blue lights on our front porch next door to your porch, but we thought that might be overdoing it.

Even some of the food was patriotic. Well, just the beer named for Sam Adams, one of the Founding Fathers. I don't know why the beer company named themselves for him. Maybe they just liked the way his name rolls off the tongue. He was no equivocator when it came to breaking free from England.

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace," he said.

He sounds like the kind of independent person you would have liked.

Quite a few people showed up on your front porch to help us celebrate (photo attached) the birth of America. We actually knew many of them.

Some of the guests are helping make "Fire Lily," the independent movie being filmed here. They are making a movie with little hope of making money, but it's the movie they want to make. They don't love wealth greater than liberty.

We had to set off a few more fireworks in their honor. I stayed close to the hose just in case. DC can get a little over enthusiastic around fireworks.

No injuries were reported.

We like living here next to you, even though sometimes it's in absentia, on a street named for the founder of Cape Girardeau, two blocks from Independence Street. We like people who start things, and we like independence in friends and thought and countries. We like your independence, your insistence on traveling by your own inner compass.

All is well at your house. We see your cat Sunday once in while. We were sure he would come back after the party broke up and we stopped shooting off fireworks from your front porch.

DC, ever the weather watcher, mowed your lawn because she saw a big rain was coming. The rain did come, a good long one. DC says to tell you your rain barrel is full in case we have a national disaster that shuts everything down.

She probably thought of that because we just saw the movie "Live Free or Die Hard." Something like that happens in the movie. Terrorists use the Internet to shut down the country. It seemed plausible, but after two hours of watching cars, helicopters and jets crash into each other and scores of people getting killed, I left agreeing with the movie's leading young man when he railed against anything that plays on our fears in order to sell us something. Art won't do that.

Your party was fun, and we didn't leave the porch in too much disarray. Many of the guests walked downtown to Libertyfest to hear our friend Kenny play in the Mike Renick Band and DC's father play in the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band before the big fireworks display over the river.

Thanks for your generosity. Wish you were here.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.