A Fourth of July Tribute: Part I

Being on vacation, I am drawing from a former column, with a few updates. 

My favorite 4^th of July moment happened in Philadelphia.  We were visiting the Liberty Bell, which no longer hangs in the belfry of Philadelphia Hall, but is housed, across the street, in the Liberty Bell Center.  We were actually there on July 8^th, which is the anniversary of the date when the bell was rung in 1776 to summon citizens to the first public reading of our Declaration of Independence.  It was hot.  There was a long line.  It didn’t matter.

            Two things happened that day that will make me smile my whole life long.  The first happened in the line.  A family with two children, a teen-ager and preteen, were in front of us.  The kids were a bit restless and the younger one pulled open a gift shop copy of the Declaration of Independence and, for no reason other than boredom, started reading it aloud.  When he got to the end of the first paragraph, his older sister took it from him and continued reading.  The line got quieter and the kids were enjoying their audience.  At one point, the girl, a bit embarrassed at the attention she was getting, handed the document to her mother, who read the next few passages before handing it to her husband who completed the oral recitation.  This spontaneous moment got a round of applause from all of us.  I thought it was a great flourish on the day, but the best was yet to come. 

            When we got to the front of the line and gathered around the Bell, our National Park guide gave a good recitation of the Bell’s long life and how often it has symbolized the hopes of people wanting their share of the American dream.  At the end of the talk we were all invited to do something rare in museums.  The guide invited us each to touch, “our Liberty Bell!”  Her exact words were, “…after all, it rang for you.” 

I was almost afraid to touch it.  But as I paused, a woman stepped forward.  She could just as easily have walked out of a history book.  She was old, gray, wearing a shapeless dress, dark shoes and thick stockings.  The scarf on her head completed the picture we all have of an immigrant.  She reached out a wrinkled hand that had seen a life time of hard work.  It hovered just over the bell and then she touched it as gently as it she was caressing the cheek of a new born.   Then she used that same hand to make the sign of the cross and wipe tears from her eyes as she walked away.

            I scarcely felt worthy of touching that bell after her. To borrow some words from Abraham Lincoln that woman had already consecrated the ground far beyond my ability to do so. I will never forget what that moment meant to me because of what it meant to these two, very different families.

            It reinforces something I have always felt about laws and government. When you look at the formation of all the ways societies govern themselves, from the early rituals of the clan to the formal documents of free people, you find that they are really just means of protecting, preserving and enriching the lives of people as centered in the family. We are as strong as our families. If that family reading the Declaration of Independence, and that old woman, showing reverence for a symbol of our freedom, are as good as we get—well, that is good enough for me.

            Enjoy the holiday, and keep the faith.