JULY

 “The Romans called this month Quintilius, which means fifth, because it was the fifth month in their calendar.  A Roman Senate renamed the month Julius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar, who was born on 12 July.  The Anglo-Saxon names for the month of July included Heymonath or Maed monath, referring respectively to haymaking and the flowering of meadows." 

                                                                       

                                          

"Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language."
Henry James

                                   

July is evocative of that time of the year in childhood when freedom was most abundant and pleasant  and delightful to the senses. 

                                                           

        It is the month, too, when rage is most likely to boil over into violence.

                            

“Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head “
The Lovin’ Spoonful

            

"People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed."
-  Ray Davies

The American 4^th of July . . .

the holiday of parades, parties, picnics, culminating in my favorite thing about the whole month . . . fireworks!

The American 4^th of July . . . . the holiday of celebrating American victory over British rule. Independence from subjugation by a foreign power. Freedom from tyranny. The right and responsibility of self-rule.

“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”

Thomas Jefferson

" O beautiful for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountains majesty
Above thy fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!"

“America the Beautiful” is a prayer for the well-being of the country and its citizens, not an assertion of superiority and power and righteousness over all others. And to this I say, “Amen!”

“It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world.  The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”                                      Baha'u'llah

“Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.” 

George Jean Nathan

“He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.”            Harry Emerson Fosdick

"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."
 Mark Twain

Hmmmm . . . . . . 

 

At noon, on the Fourth of July, 1826, while the Liberty Bell was again sounding its old message to the people of Philadelphia, the soul of Thomas Jefferson passed on; and a few hours later John Adams entered into rest, with the name of his old friend upon his lips.
Allen Johnson

Hmmmm . . . . . . .

"Well I’m a-gonna raise a fuss, I’m gonna raise a holler

About workin’ all summer just to try an’ earn a dollar
Everytime I call my baby, to try to get a date
My boss says, no dice, son, you gotta work late
Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do
’cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues."
-  Eddie Cochran, Summertime Blues   

                                        

                 

And that’s all there is to say about that!

Except for maybe . . . . . 

"The crocuses and the larch turning green every year a week before the others and the pastures red with uneaten sheep's placentas and the long summer days and the new mown hay and the wood pigeon in the morning and the cuckoo in the afternoon and the corncrake in the evening and the wasps in the jam and the smell of grose and the look of the gorse and the apples falling and the children walking in the dead leaves and the larch turning brown a week before the others and the chestnuts falling and the howling winds and the sea breaking over the pier and the first fires and the hooves on the road and the consumptive postman whistling "The Roses are Blooming in Picardy" and the standard oil-lamp and of course the snow and to be sure the sleet and bless your heart the slush and every fourth year the February debacle and the endless April showers and the crocuses and then the whole bloody business starting all over again."

Samuel Beckett, “Watt”

                                

 

And then, of course, there’s . . . . . .  

 

“I see great things in baseball.  It's our game - the American game.”
Walt Whitman

“Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.”

 George F. Will

“Baseball is the only major sport that appears backward in a mirror”

 George Carlin

 

Hmmmm . . . . . . . . . .

And finally . . . . . . . .

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."
-  Sam Keen  

                      

                                                      

Yes, yes, yes!

May the month of ‘haymaking’ and ‘flowering of meadows’ bring you many hours of play and pleasure!