The 18th Century would like a word with you….

Between the heat and the neighbors starting the Holiday fireworks a couple of days early (and staying with them more or less continuously for 3 days…) I was pretty much unFourthed by the morning of the 3d. I decided that I’d much rather get dangerously dehydrated in the shade of a beautiful mansion with a handful of agreeably sober historians than in a big open field with twenty or fifty thousand rowdy drunks, so I went back to 1776 at Bayou Bend instead of hitting the big commercial festivals. (Yes, I know, it wasn’t BUILT then and this part of the country was still what God meant it to be – a yellow fever swamp. The Allen Brothers won’t be born for decades. Time Travel involves paradox. Deal with it.)

Yes, they’re carrying military weapons – but the Second Amendment is still a few years in the future and the NRA is a LONG way off yet.

The problem with musicians is they don’t know enough to come in out of the sun…

“Pay attention, you. This is important and there WILL be a test. Several of them, actually. And they’re not graded on a curve.”

“We hold these Truths to be Self-Evident: That All Men are Created Equal…”

Okay, we’re not there yet but at least some of us are still trying.

There was other stuff, games and crowds and music and cake and such, but … This was the important part. (Well, that and drinking ice water by the gallon trying not to die…)

I hung around for an hour or so after the reading, chatting with soldiers and musicians and even a couple of Tories (“That’s Loyal British Subjects to you, you traitorous b*stards…”) and in general melting slowly, and then headed home. I thought about going out later for fireworks shots but there were already enough things going boom two buildings north and I just wasn’t up for it, so I stayed in and drank more gallons of ice water. After a few years fireworks all start to look the same anyway.

(Late Edit: To the right of the top post is a box for you to sign up to receive email updates when we post here. ESPECIALLY if you’re coming here from a FaceBook link, I’d appreciate it if you’d use that. You won’t be sold or spammed, and when I leave Facebook (soon) we won’t completely lose touch. Thanks.)