The Fourth of July is a big holiday around these parts. I don't know how much people are thinking about Philadelphia in 1776 and throwing off the yoke of British rule, but they sure like to blow things up.
Test salvos start some time in June. In addition to the usual little crackles of small arms, occasionally, at any hour, something large could go up with a deep boom.
We live in the woods. There isn't really any place to have a parade. The schools don't have marching bands. You can run up a flag if you want, but the main activity is blowing stuff up. It peaks around now, but takes the rest of the month or more to wind down. With a boom boom here and a boom boom there, here a boom, there a boom, everywhere a boom boom...
On the Disney Morning News, Sam Champion was talking to Gloria Estefan. I wasn't really paying attention, waiting for my local weather forecast, when I heard Gloria say, "we're at the American Mecca."
They were at Walt Disney World. Mecca?
I wish I could disagree. But our site of pilgrimage in this country is an amusement park.
While I like to find my fun in less controlled environments, at least using Disney World as the center of our religion shows that we don't take ourselves too seriously. World War III, underway as we speak, is between people who take themselves way too seriously and those who want to be free not to. The worst part of the battle is that it has to be fought, because it can't be defused with humor. One whole side is incapable of getting most of the jokes, especially the ones on them.
Still, I feel a little uneasy putting Cinderella's castle up there next to the Ka'bah. Maybe when Cinderella's castle has been around for a few more centuries it will have soaked up more of the gravity of the older shrine. You just have to give these things time. It all starts with an idea. Like the idea Gloria Estefan so casually put forth this morning.
Yay, Mecca! Yay Mecca! Yay, Mecca Mouse Club!
No comments:
Post a Comment