Our nation is in its 232nd year.

All the chatter around about here is of "What are you doing for the 4th?" Americans traditionally eat hot dogs and watch fireworks. This year especially, with everyone adjusting to the shock of gas and food prices, we're staying around home.

At the grocery Tuesday bags of 8 hot dog buns were on sale for 77 cents and a package of hot dogs was $1. Coke products were on sale at three 12 packs for $9 and you could buy just one. Potatoes were $3.29 for a ten pound bag. Looks like for about $8 you could do the traditional 4th of July picnic for a family for 4.

You don't need fireworks either. There's to be a concert with local talent and a major fireworks show downtown on the river. All Free! If you were to walk to Bardstown Road from here, a bus would take you right down there for $1.50. Going back home is another $1.50.

For that fantasy family of 4, the 4th of July would cost $5 each.

A point of view changes what you see.

I was reading blogs from college students on a dig in Israel yesterday afternoon and one described how they saw eagles. If you see the elevation of the site where they were digging, you can imagine the birds below.

These people saw the birds as eagles, though you can see it would be hard to tell the kind of bird with the haze and distance. Another at the same place believed them to be vultures. They saw the huge wingspan as they came in low.

A number of eagles were circling over
The valley below where we worked today.
Ancestors of birds who circled above
The heads of those who walked the
Stone paved streets we have revealed,
With pick axes to loosen earth, not open
To the sky for two thousand years, and
Hauling huge stones with our strong backs,
As we perch on this mountain high above,
Eagles or maybe it was hawks circle.

July 2, 2008