Yet another American holiday crept up on me when I wasn't expecting it.
Yesterday, still sitting around in my pyjamas at midday, I heard three loud gunshots, and then a flyover by a military jet or two. Yes, the Fourth of July. Not a three gun salute, though - the shots went on sporadically... must be marking midday... no, way past twelve of them. Three quarters of an hour later I finally gave in and had to go out to find out whether a British re-invasion was being repelled, or whether English people were being shot in effigy. In front of the State Capitol building I found lots of flags, a big and very noisy gun, and a thin little crowd listening to a thin little military band playing music that sounded as if it would fit well at an English garden party. Some kind of Independence Day military ceremony.
The crowds and the people on the street are more interesting for me on days like this than the events, though I can only take them in short doses. What makes people get up in the morning and go out to take their flags for a walk? It seems like a football match, except that there is only one team.
In the evening I took a run to the City Park, where I knew the Colorado Symphony Orchestra was giving a free "All-American" concert. I arrived just in time to hear the last few bars of something very familiar and distinctly not American, and then a very short and very American finale which had people waving their flags and their babies in the air (which is perhaps why I really find such days so alienating - they are days for families and large groups of friends of the type you only have if you've managed to spend a decade or so in one place). So I ran home again, and went to bed good and early to make sure I could be woken up as many times as possible by my various neighbours. I understand that I missed a firework and lightning display.
To be honest, I think that fireworks are really quite boring - but don't tell anyone.
