Post Independence

Thanks to a very generous employer and the 4th of July falling on a Sunday this year, I’m fortunate enough to have the day after Independence Day off from work. I’ll admit my grand plans of a productive day got off to a terrible start as the dog and I wasted most of the morning away seeing who could sleep the longest. Off and on swimming plans didn’t help me get going either as I didn’t want to “start” any projects that I couldn’t finish. I eventually made my way towards the pool around 1:30 today and as I was driving there a thought struck me – I wonder what the day after Independence Day was like for our Founding Fathers. Fireworks, parades, and parties are nice, but it’s not exactly like coming off the high of declaring independence from an oppressive mother country. Not to mention, the process of declaring independence isn’t something that happens in a day (and in fact it didn’t), so was there more “legal” wrangling going on or was it just one big party? I’m not big on reading historical books, but my guess is that plenty of historians and biographers have written about this – so take my question as more of a rhetorical one than anything else. It was just something to get my mind preoccupied as I drove 20 minutes to the misery of splashing my way through 1600 yards in the pool.