We are celebrating our nation’s birthday again. This year the good ol’ United States of America is 244 years young. So, happy Independence Day, everyone! It’s certainly a year for the books.

We all know the history of the birth of our nation and the document that secured our independence from Great Britain, but few have considered how we made America great. It starts, of course, with our Constitution and Bill of Rights that gives the force of law to our society.

Besides being a lawful society, the physical stature of our landscape is paramount. We have friendly neighbors to the north and south of us, and oceans on our east and west coasts. These natural boundaries, the abundance of natural resources, temperate climate and fertile soils give us a considerable advantage to advance our culture to be a shining light in the world for all to see.

Although we, like most countries, are in a constant societal evolution, our tradition of ingenuity and innovation is enhanced by that change. Remember the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention?” Well, that has been the driving force to build our society.

Our colleges and universities produce engineers, scientists, physicists, and others that push the envelope of invention. To facilitate the learning curve of production, we have teachers, economists, legal and financial professions that lead our corporations. We have a skilled workforce that is trained to manufacture the products we use today. Assembly line specialists, front office personnel, copy room technicians, and many others contribute to our success, and all are essential to the team effort. To keep us well and able to be productive citizens, our medical communities provide us with outstanding care and preventive medicines.

Often overlooked and taken for granted is the diversity of our natural resources. Take water, for instance. We turn on the tap and have fresh drinking water. We cook with it, bathe with it, and water our plants with it. It’s a blessing to have such a simple thing as water in such plentiful supply.

Speaking of plants, have you been to your grocery stores lately? Wow. What a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables that are the envy of the world. Our farmers feed us, while ranchers and fishers supply us with a variety of meats, poultry, fish, and dairy so we can prepare nutritious meals anytime we want. Sometimes, we crave junk food, so stores carry that too. Bring on the Twinkies.

Innovations that make our lives easier are cell phones, the internet, and our favorite television shows and movies that we can watch almost anywhere. These devices are ubiquitous and are sometimes annoying to others when we use them, not to mention using the phone while driving. To solve that problem, we are at the infancy of self-driving cars that will take us places while we happily chat or text on our phones. I think if we had those devices in the horse and buggy days, we would have been pretty happy, and let the horse lead the way.

So, in this 244th year of America, we are fortunate to live in a society where we live free, have plenty of food and water, and can go for a Sunday drive, even if it is not Sunday. But please remember that we live virtually care-free because of the vision of our forefathers of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Also, it is important to remember that our military has secured our way of life on more than one occasion, where thousands of men and women sacrificed their lives. Their sacrifice is enshrined in a passage from President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:

“That from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

The passage refers to those who died in the Civil War, but I think it appropriately addresses all who have given so much.

In this year of the pandemic and social unrest, we will come together as Americans and continue the experiment in societal evolution that the world knows as “America.”

Now let’s get this birthday party started!

Happy Fourth of July everyone.

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Jack Evensizer is a resident of Dalton Gardens