TUPATALK: July Fourth is celebration of freedom's wonder, including sports

As a kid I recall the anticipation — that only childhood magic can create — of driving with my family to some open area in Southern California and seeing clusters of people gathered, as we were, to watch a July Fourth fireworks show.

Those year of youthful wonder pass so quickly — not too many years to make memories of watching in awe at the great red-and-green-and-white explosions in the night air. It’s  kind of like Christmas — there are only so many for children before the thrill of seeing gleaming tinsel seem to drip off the tree like silver raindrops and the glow of a flashlight, a soft lamp or the tired flames of a fading fire add to the mystique of an enchantment that forever lives in some special place in our hearts.

On Monday, we’ll surpass another July Fourth. A new generation of impressionable young minds will capture the awe of the exploding shells and color-dripping sky — sitting next to parents, grandparents and siblings — creating recollections to last a lifetime.

I’d like to express my gratitude for what this celebration represents to me.

Thirty-five years ago this July, I had just surpassed my 31st birthday and made my living as graveyard shift security guard, not making much more than minimum wage.

My future appeared to be as tenuous and uncertain as a cloudy night sky before the arrival of dawn.

I had sent out more than 100 resumes and queries for the previous two years to newspaper, had driven 1,200-miles roundtrip — on my own dime and in one day — for an interview that resulted in another rejection, and seemed to be running out of opportunities and times.

The job market was brutally tight; there seemed to be no spot for a former Marine Corps average radar technician on the obsolete F-4 jet, and few openings in a shrinking newspaper journalism field.

My quest almost seemed hopeless. I didn’t know if I’d ever get a chance to write for newspaper and didn’t have any other career plans.

But, I didn’t give up. A full two years after I finished my Marine Corps active duty tour, a newspaper in Nevada — to which I had already sent two or three inquiries — called me up about two weeks prior to Christmas and offered me a job.

When I think about this in relation to July Fourth, I think of Thomas Jefferson’s observation in the Declaration of Independence about “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Because I lived in a place named America, I had the freedom to make my own dream and follow it through, no matter how many years it took or how many paths I had to travel.

That’s what the fireworks mean to me.

Here are some other things the celebration represents to me.

It is Rick Monday rescuing an American flag from being burned on the field of Dodgers Stadium by two protesters. He grabbed the emblem, as they tried to set it to fire, and sprinted partway off the field, while holding it in both arms, and then walked and carried it in his right hand and gave it to someone in the Dodgers dugout.

July Fourth means to me the tears in my mom’s eye when she talked about a motorcycle biker in her apartment complex that had connected a small American flag to the back bar of his chopper.

July Fourth means to me peaceful Friday nights of high school football while people from every section of town and every walk of life gather in unified support of the team.

July Fourth means to me the military ceremony at my dad’s funeral.

July Fourth means to me my sister’s unashamed love of the best ideals of what America hopes to stand for.

July Fourth means to me ice cream, barbecued chicken, basketball, a snow cone, barbecued potato chips, the Super Bowl, Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Wilma Rudolph, Joe Kapp, Johnny Unitas, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Steve Young, Mary Lou Retton, Ronald Reagan, “Rocky Balboa”, the original Stars Wars movie, Humphrey Bogart, Karl Malden, John Wayne, Jesse Owens, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Louie Zamperini, Peggy Fleming, Jim Brown, Peter Vidmar, “Secondhand Lions”, Seabiscuit, Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Trevino, Mike Tomlin, Ed Ames, Dolly Parton, Arnold Palmer, Nancy Lopez, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Bill Belichick, James J. Braddock, Tony La Russa, Ken Norton, George Foreman, Billy Graham, Dale Murphy, Al Michaels and “Do you believe in miracles,” Charley Pride, Vince Lombardi,  the Stylistics, Bread, the Carpenters and many, many other things and people.

July Fourth to me is the customers on my old paper route, churchgoers and believers belonging to the faith of their choice, the Masters, handshakes with friends and strangers and a thousand other things.

Mostly, July Fourth to me is the hope of freedom and opportunity for everyone, a fair democracy, love and understanding between all people, personal prosperity, quality education for all and a viable belief that through hard work, sacrifice, discipline, determination, faith and persistence that anyone can see their dreams come through.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TUPATALK: A reflection on the meaning of July Fourth