155 million hot dogs will be consumed today. End to end, you can connect Los Angeles to Washington D.C. with wieners...5 times.
That's one helluva way to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Another good way to celebrate patriotism is to import $200,000,000 worth of fireworks from China. Yes, that's six zeros on that sum. An interesting way to celebrate the stars and bars.
A bit of history for you while you're stuffing your face with wieners, Independence Day was not made an official holiday until 1941, one-hundred and sixty years hence. There is conjecture regarding the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence and some say the document was signed as much as one full month later than the paperwork suggests. We are one vital fact away from celebrating this holiday on August 4th.
Our forefathers actually declared independence on the 2nd, not the 4th, regardless of the month, but apparently declaring something isn't worth celebrating as much as signing something that declares the declaration. Although our newly formed, unofficial congress declared independence from Great Britain on the 2nd day of a debatable summer month in 1776, there was still a big war to win in order for that independence to truly occur. Six years post declaration and declaration signing, the United States of America finally seceded from the motherland. In reality, we should celebrate our independence on September 3rd, commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1781, which sealed the deal and our fate once and for all. We won the war. We won generations of struggles, both financially and sociologically. We won the insight that freedom has a cost and comes with great responsibility. Some may contend that we're still learning some of these lessons to this very day. We are, after all, still a very young nation.
So today when you raise your hands to celebrate our freedoms afforded to us by true visionaries, jazz them for our mighty struggles and an even mightier learning curve. Jazz your hands to commemorate the day we earned the right to stumble and the right to stand up to try again.
It's important to note that even though we seem fixated on a specific date, what we are really celebrating is an ideal that we still strive to uphold, an expectation handed to us by a people with hope if not for themselves but for future generations...they had us in mind. Thus, we must return the favor, looking back at what they intended, we must look forward and hand expectation of high ideals to our future generations. Hope is what created this nation against all odds and it is hope that we must hand to the future. Without it, we have nothing.
Today's Jazz Hands gave proof through the night. Day one-hundred and eighty-five complete.
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