The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 134, Ed. 1 Friday, July 5, 2013 Page: 4 of 8
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1 ■
4 The Baytown tun
Viewpoints
Friday
July 5, 2013
MARK
FLEMING
Would you
like fries
with that?
Now that the Fourth of July is behind us, I have a
confession to make that might call into question my
credentials as a real American: I don’t
like French fries.
I don’t hate them - they’re just not a
favorite food.
I think it’s the inherent disappoint-
ment in that French fries smell so
awesome that the reality of eating them
is a letdown.
Every now and then I’ll get an order
and quench my French fry desires for
another couple of months, but by an
large I take my fast food without the
little deep-fried strips of Americana.
Which is where the problem comes in.
I suspect the average fast food worker receives more
training in how to deal with a robbery than in how to
deal with a customer who doesn't want French fries.
“I’d like a hamburger with no onions and a large
drink, please.”
[Furious tapping on cash register keys].
“Do you want to upsize that?”
“I don’t want a meal. Just a hamburger and a large
drink.”
“You don’t want a meal?”
“No, just a hamburger and a large drink.”
“Just a hamburger and a large drink?”
“Yes.”
[Furious tapping on cash register keys].
“OK, that will be a hamburger and a large drink. With-
out French fries?”
“Right, without French fries. Not a meal. Just a ham-
burger and a large drink. No onions on the hamburger.”
[Blank stare]
“No onions on the hamburger?”
“Right.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I don’t want onions. Or French fries.”
[Furious tapping on cash register keys].
“OK. A hamburger with no onions, a large drink, and
no French fries.”
“Right.”
“Can I get you an apple pie or French fries with that?”
“No, thank you.”
“That will be to go?”
“For here.”
“For here?”
“Yes.”
[Furious tapping on cash register keys].
With surprising frequency, the person filling the order
in equally unable to comprehend that a human can actu-
ally consume food without the aid of French fries, and
will add them to the order anyway.
I think this is their way of helping to combat the defi-
ciency of sodium and fat found in the typical American
diet.
And that’s not completely a bad thing.
After all, they do smell great as you take them out of
the to-go bag.
Mark Fleming is the news-editor at The Sun. He can
he reached at viewpoints@baytownsun.com. Attention:
Mark Fleming.
TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is the 186th day of
2013 and the 15th day of
summer.
TODAY’S HISTORY:
In 1865, the Salvation
Army was founded in Lon-
don.
In 1935, the National
Labor Relations Act was
passed, guaranteeing work-
ers the right to organize
and bargain collectively.
In 1971, President Rich-
ard Nixon certified the 26th
Amendment, lowering the
voting age from 21 to 18.
In 1996, Dolly the sheep,
the first mammal to be
cloned from an adult cell,
was bom.
TODAY’S BIRTH-
DAYS: P.T. Bamum
(1810-1891), circus found-
er; John Maynard Keynes
(1883-1946), economist;
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963),
writer; Henry Cabot Lodge
Jr. (1902-1985), diplomat;
Huey Lewis (1950-), sing-
er; Bill Watterson (1958- ),
cartoonist; Edie Falco
(1963- ), actress; Adam
Young (1986- ), sing-
er-songwriter.
TODAY’S FACT: The
bikini swimsuit, introduced
by French fashion designer
Louis Reard on this day in
1946, was named for the
Bikini Atoll, where the
United States had conduct-
ed a news-making atomic
test earlier in the week.
TODAY’S SPORTS:
In 2009, Roger Federer
won his world-record 15th
Grand Slam tournament
with a victory over Andy
Roddick at Wimbledon.
TODAY’S QUOTE:
“Nobody ever lost a dol-
lar by underestimating the
taste of the American pub-
lic.” - P.T. Bamum
TODAY’S NUMBER:
5 billion - cans of Spam
sold worldwide by the end
of the 20th century. The
canned meat product from
Hormel Food Corp. was
introduced on this day in
1931.
TODAY’S MOONbe-
tween last quarter moon
(June 29) and new moon
(July 8).
V ©2o« WWutett ?c6T-Gfite.fa.
A grand ol’ Fourth
July 4th. Midway through another
year of turbulent weather, political
unrest and market uncertainty, we
celebrate our shared history.
For my family, we celebrated the
Fourth' of July with a big picnic in
the backyard complete with burgers,
dogs or freshly caught seafood.
Frequently, we went downtown to
see the local parade.
And my parents often saved
enough money to take us more than
five hours away on a bus to Houston
to watch the Astros.
The Fourth was always about
family, and I believe it still is.
Is there any American reading this
who doesn’t have childhood memo-
ries of celebrating the Fourth?
. I remember the parades of my
youth, where almost the entire town
would come out and wave small
flags and applaud the procession,
often led by a local revered person.
Sometimes, even the governor might
come to a small town and celebrate
with them.
Still the best part of July 4th is the
last: watching fireworks after the sun
has gone down.
In Washington, D.C., the National
Symphony Orchestra gives a concert
on the Capitol lawn, timed to end
with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture
- as rousing a piece as was ever
written, concluding with cymbals
crashing, crescendoing strings, bells
and horns and the resounding thun-
der of actual cannons firing.
Just as the overture ends, fireworks
streak upward over the Washington
Monument and Lincoln Memorial,
decorating a starry sky.-
(FY1: You can watch it on PBS.)
As grand as that is, our home fire-
works and sparklers, hot dogs and
hamburgers, radios and CD players,
matched it - at'least in our minds.
One of my favorite quotes about
the Fourth comes from homespun
columnist Erma Bombeck: “You
have to love a nation that celebrates
its independence every July 4, not
with a parade of guns, tanks and
soldiers... but with family picnics
where kids throw Frisbees, the
potato salad gets iffy and the flies die
DONNA
BRAZILE
from happiness.
You may think you
have overeaten,
but it is patrio-
tism.”
Speaking of pa-
triotic overeating,
I believe there are
only about three or
four nations.that
celebrate a nation-
al holiday for Thanksgiving - and
ours was the first.
One hundred fifty years ago this
week, the Battle of Gettysburg
essentially settled what was perhaps
the core issue of the Civil War:
whether this nation would exist as a
nation of equals before the law.
Abraham Lincoln came slowly to
the concept of emancipation but not
to the concept of equality.
Grateful for the pivotal, even deci-
sive, victory at Gettysburg, President
Lincoln announced that the last
Thursday of November would, from
then on, be a national Thanksgiving
holiday. -
So on Nov. 19,1863, at the
dedication of the Soldiers' National
Cemetery, Lincoln delivered the
Gettysburg Address, and on Nov. 26,
the nation celebrated the first official
Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving and the Fourth of
July are the most ironically Ameri-
can of all our holidays.
Both are holidays of families.
Although the tradition of giving
thanks goes back to the Plymouth
colony and the Pilgrims and Indians,
Thanksgiving is really about this
nation as a family and as a nation of
families.
I’ve always liked the idea of fam-
ilies gathering and sharipg food and
stories and games, and most import-
ant, giving thanks. s
And in this instance, the individ-
ual family and the national family
reflecting each other.
Thanksgiving and July 4th are
also about shared sacrifices and our
freedoms.
The Fourth reminds us that, yes,
we have had our ups and downs, our
recessions and wars - times when
our unity was tested but we always
came through them.
Our unity was tested from the
founding, when on July 2, 1776 the
Continental Congress voted in favor
of independence.
John Adams thought that would be
Independence Day.
But the celebration became set on
July 4, the day the declaration was
approved.
Adams, the voice of independence,
and Thomas Jefferson, the pen of
independence, were first friends,
then bitter political rivals - the pres-
idential campaign of 1800 still ranks
as one of the nastiest then friends
again, whose correspondence late in
life is a classic of national dialogue,
reconciliation and unity.
Both died on July 4, 1826.
symbolizing that even in death,
our union,transcends regions and
ideologies.
If July 4 is Independence Day, per-
haps July 2 should be Equality Day.
After all, we cannot declare our
independence unless we truly hold it
as a self-evident truth that everyone
is created equal. Thus, it was surely
no coincidence that President Lyn-
don Johnson signed the Civil Rights
Act in 1964 on ... July 2.
Johnson was a complex man w ho.
like Lincoln, slow ly came to under-
stand the need for a new emancipa-
tion.
Johnson’s efforts on behalf of civil
rights also came at great political
sacrifice. But it strengthened us as a
nation - as a family.
This July 4 we have much to cele-
brate and many thanks to give.
Lincoln asked whether this nation
could long endure,
This July 4, as 1 hear families
talking and see people celebrating
together - across regions and ideol-
ogies -1 have no doubt the answer
is yes.
Donna Brazile is a senior Demo-
cratic strategist, a political commen-
tator and contributor to CNN and
ABC News, and a contributing col-
umnist to Ms. Magazine and O. the
Oprah Magazine
Get More From Your Day
M MOWN M
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Yanelli, Adam. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 134, Ed. 1 Friday, July 5, 2013, newspaper, July 5, 2013; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1065719/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.