The Pike County Chamber of Commerce has decided not to host the annual Fourth of July fireworks this year because of the current state of the economy. You can read the whole story here: C.O.C. decides not to host July 4th event
No fireworks? No Celebrating our Independence? Are you kidding me?
There isn’t any doubt that times are hard. All we have to do is cut on the news, and gloom and doom is broadcast 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. Turn on the radio: Whenever they stop playing songs, the announcer is battering us with how bad things are, with how we’re living in fear and hopelessness. All we have to do is look at our neighbors and see them losing their homes to foreclosure. We all pray quietly that we won’t be next…
Next to lose our home. Next to lose our car. Next to lose our job. Next to lose a person that we love.
There is darkness everywhere.
That’s EXACTLY why we shouldn’t cancel the fireworks. That’s exactly why we need to celebrate our Nation’s Independence. That’s exactly why we need to go boldly into the night.
Fireworks. They are a reminder of a time when royalty tried to tax our people to death with an iron-fist from across the Atlantic. They are a reminder of the brave men and women who laid down their lives to fight for our Independence. They are a reminder of the men who signed their names on a piece of paper – even though many believed they were signing their own death warrants. They are a reminder of the soldiers that have died in days of old and in the most recent days of new. Some of those soldiers lived here in Pike County. Went to school here. Have families here. How can we dare insult their memory by not honoring their service?
Fireworks. They are reminders that we are a people that call ourselves Americans and we don’t all have to agree to get along. We come in many shapes. Many colors. Many sizes. We’re all unique. We’re all beautiful in our own special way – just like fireworks.
Fireworks. They are reminders that no matter how dark it gets outside, we can always look up to the heavens and see the light.
Fireworks. Beautiful and brilliant sparkles of erupting light, beacons of hope and freedom in the dark, dark night. If we don’t paint hope and freedom across the sky for all to see, who will? It’s who we are. It’s what we do.
I try to imagine George Washington telling his starved, half-naked, unpaid, barely hanging-on soldiers that we are just going to give up because the money isn’t there to fight the battle. That we won’t try. We won’t press on – we will just lie down and die. And, you know what? I just couldn’t see him ever saying something like that.
Now, I do understand why the Board of Commissioners and Chamber of Commerce doesn’t want to pay for it. They are trying to be fiscally responsible. I applaud their sound economic judgment, but at the same time I challenge all the people in our community to do what government was never designed to do: Take care of our own problems.
I’m willing to donate $500.00 or 10% (whichever is greater) from all new closings from now until July 4th to help cover the cost. My daughter said that she will cancel her birthday party on June 21st and donate the money for her cake and gifts for the fireworks. Even at seven years of age she understands what they mean. When I told her that they were going to be cancelled she said, “That just ain’t right!”
No, it ain’t right!
I challenge all citizens of Pike County to step up and make it happen.
Moms: Bake some cookies to sell.
Dads: Play a few rounds of golf at a dollar a hole.
Kids: Wash a few hundred cars.
Pastors: Pass that collection plate around for this country.
Businesses: Put up a plastic bowl and collect those pennies, nickels and dimes.
Realtors®: I challenge every other local real estate agent to step up and do something too. You beat that code-of-ethics drum like you’re sitting first chair in the percussion section of an orchestra. What does that code say? Underneath all is the land! The land. THE LAND.
This land. Right here. Right now. Help do something about it. We owe our livelihood to this land. Thousands upon thousands of brave men and women have died to give us the right to wake up every single day and sell houses ON THIS LAND. We should never allow this land and everything it stands for to not be celebrated.
Don’t let the lights go out in Pike County, Georgia. Not this year. Not on our watch.
Doug Quance says:
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin… they’re all spinning in their graves, now.
The taxes that they rose up against are a mere pittance of what the government is seizing, today. Total taxation is closing in on half of the total economic output of the nation.
While I agree with your premise that we shouldn’t cancel the fireworks – I wholeheartedly understand and agree with the government leaders who found it fiscally irresponsible to pay for it – given the current state of economic affairs.
If you can help raise the funds to co-sponsor the show – I think that’s great… and I hope you pull it off.
March 13, 2009 — 12:12 pm
Jessica Horton says:
Doug:
As do I. It was the responsible thing to do, but we can raise the money.
March 13, 2009 — 12:16 pm