Will's Good Idea for the 4th of July

The title is misleading. We don't have a good idea. Happy July 4th.

[Bloody ungrateful Colonials. If it weren't for us you'd all be speaking French-Ed]

We love it when you people get snooty about the Revolution. 

[You mean Insurrection-Ed]

Ooooo, pouty English woman, you know we like that.

[Knobhead-Ed]

We'll be barbequing and setting off some fireworks like it's Diwali.

There's only one alternate history we know of imagining the Revolution never happened, Harry Turtledove's The Two Georges. We've never read it. Here's an article we did 15 years ago for History Magazine about the Whigs in Parliament at the time. Fun stuff.*

Twenty years ago today, we saw the New York Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. 

We were a few weeks away from moving out of Northern Virginia. Back then we'd catch half a dozen games a season at Camden Yards. Here's the game. Somewhere we have a few pics. Mrs. Stroock suggested we get sushi, to which we replied, 'Now our boys didn't raise the Stars and Stripes atop Mt. Surabachi for you to getting Sushi on the Fourth of July.' 

Certainly not while seeing the New York Yankees in Baltimore.  Sushi? We might as well have had tea and crumpets and talked about the latest episode of East Enders. 

[Why you....American-Ed]

Don't make us go all Meghan Markle on you.

*Looks like the link is dying. Maybe I'll put the article up somewhere myself.

July 4, 2019: A Retrospective

We plan and god laughs.

[Oh no, you were landscaping and you were going to set off fireworks...-Ed]

Not that, still have all my fingers. I can still count to ten, twenty- one if...

[Don't say it-Ed]

The landscaping went swimmingly.

So at 3 PM or so we were gasing up the Waterproof, our motorboat named after our grandmother's home town of Waterproof, Louisiana, when the gas cap fell off the chain and into the watery muck.

So that happened.

We set off some Pennsylvania Fireworks, which went well enough. We were fire-cracking mad for the things as a youth, and one never really looses that skill set, or the desire to see just how many bottle rockets one can set off at once. Here, fire is your friend. We may or may not have said, 'Let's just light the whole goddam bag on fire.'

Mrs. Stroock may or may not have been displeased.

A pontoon boat of drunk Millennials singing Maroon-5 songs motored in close to shore and watched.

We know what you're thinking, but our sky rockets just didn't have the range.

A young woman kept shouting, 'More fireworks!' and only the thought of Mrs. Stroock's wrath prevented us from shouting back, 'Show us your tits!' Also, 45.

Later we retired indoors and watched the Boston Pops. As always they finished with the 1812 Overture, an American tradition. Which is weird, no?

Now, yesterday our Confederate contingent berated us for the gas BBQ. Actually, our sister bought it for up here and back home in Nueva Jersey we BBQ with charcoal. That being said, it is a scientific fact the gas grills produce better food, so sayeth Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Knoxville Tennessee. So take that!

European reader(s) should not be dismissive of the gas v char argument. Insurrections have broken out over government mandates about charcoal barbeques. Give me Kingsford Light Fluid or give me death, the good people of Beaver Dam, Kentucky were once heard to shout. While the propane shortage of '89 is forever seared in the memory of Bakersfield, California.

Post July Fourth Thoughts on...

...Our British inheritance.

Back when we were a history prof, we spent a lot of time on British history. Yes, of course the adjunct coordinator got on our case about it, commie bitch.

Anyway, without Britain, America as we know it would not exist, obviously. Also, our revolution ain't as politically revolutionary as folks like to think. Our house and senate are just a copy of the Brit's commons and lords and the presidency is the king and PM rolled into one. Our own Bill of Rights enumerate the rights of Englishmen as understood by a bunch of American lawyers; with a few tweaks.*

The colonies weren't rebelling becuase they hated the British. They were rebelling becuase they were British. We would tell our students, 'Whatever your ethnic heritage, if you're an American, Britain is your mother country.'

See, the real revolution happened in England a hundred years before, ours was simply the next step.

*No religious test, for example.
.