Two Worlds on the Fourth of July
Conceived in liberty, a nation is born.
July 4, 2026, marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of the liberty in which our nation was conceived. A nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Also that all have rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Rights that cannot be taken away. That proposition has since been extended to all women as well as to men and women of all colors of the rainbow.
That’s the proposition, anyway.
July 4, 1776, was the moment of conception for this nation. The ensuing 250 years in the womb of becoming have seen times of peaceful growth and development as well as times of turbulence and tumult. More than once the fetal nation, so pregnant with promise, faced miscarriage and even the prospect of being aborted. Nevertheless, the pregnancy prevailed so that now, 3000 months later, we are at the moment of birth. But the birth is not proceeding easily. Critical breeches of national unity threaten a still birth. It is the duty and solemn responsibility of those of us who have chosen to be here at this time to midwife the birth, to breathe life into the newborn, and to nurture it so that it grows into a healthy expression of the promise and ideals bound into its DNA.
We have much work to do – an instance of which I witnessed earlier on this day of celebration.
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I am sitting at a street table by a downtown San Mateo café, sipping cappuccino while sussing out sudoku. I glance up and see before me two worlds side by side on the sidewalk. Each world oblivious to the other, unseen, nonexistent. Less than 10 feet away, an elderly man is harvesting cans and bottles, formerly filled with soda and beer, from a blue recycling bin parked at the curb. Presumably, his aim is to trade them for five cents each from California’s Beverage Recycling Program.
His clothes are dirty and tattered. His face, unshaven, sun-darkened, weather-wrinkled. He walks slowly, methodically, step by step, back bent by the burdens of his years. He’s transporting his bounty from the bin back to the workstation he’s set up next to a wall across the sidewalk. The workstation consists of three large, white plastic trash bags and one brown paper bag with handles. He stoops over and sorts the cans and bottles into the various bags. From time to time – in order, I imagine, to make room in the bags – he removes a few cans and stomps on them with a loud, flattening crunch before replacing them. Always slowly, methodically, with focused purpose.
At last, sorting and packing done, he pulls and securely ties the draw strings on the plastic bags, picks them up, along with the paper bag, and walks – slowly, methodically, bent – back to the blue recycling bin where he’s parked his black mini-bike. He then proceeds to heft his haul onto the handlebars. Suddenly, his slow, methodical intention is interrupted by the clatter of bottles falling from the paper bag, which has become wet, weakened, and now torn by its content’s leakage. Fortunately, none breaks.
The man witnesses the calamity calmly; nary a curse nor gasp crosses his lips. Slowly and methodically, he gathers up the bottles, which have rolled around the sidewalk, and places them in other bags and the bike’s basket. The broken paper bag he pushes into the recycling bin. No room for him on the bike, so he simply walks the bike to the corner, and crosses the street. My eyes follow him as he continues – slowly, methodically, step by step – further and further into the distance, a line of parked cars on his right, traffic passing from behind on his left. After a couple of blocks, he vanishes from view.
All the while, through this whole scenario, another world unfolds. People pass on the sidewalk peering into cell phones. A young couple hold lattes with one hand and each other with the other. Parents hurry along, their children skipping ahead. All manage to skirt the man sorting cans and picking up bottles. No one pays him any mind. Nor he them. Both unaware of the existence of the other. Invisible. Two distinct worlds that don’t intersect.
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On this day, the Fourth of July, we clearly have our work cut out for us to help this newborn nation fulfill the noble proposition in which it was conceived.