Independence Day

July 3, 2025

Well, it's not quite Independence Day, and when we turn over a new leaf we sorry Americans won't wake up being nearly as independent as we were last year. Somehow the sane majority of the country (which, despite outward appearances does include my currently very amped-up self) have got to take to the streets en masse, rally around our poor tattered flag and take our country back. I've got a mental image of AOJ, Bernie, Gavin and the like leaning into a slope and planting our poor, tattered flag, taking ground like the real heroes of our past have done here and abroad since our once great country was born.

But we won't be witnessing it here, because TA is leaving it as we speak. We'll be witnessing it alright, but not from here. We're going to swiftly exit stage right and leave the platform we're occupying here and roll out onto the immediately adjacent one. Because as I looked around this chaotic scene - we've just moved into a new apartment that we'll be staying in until we leave for London in a month, we just picked up a new rental car that'll give us a bit more freedom of movement until that day, there's a fantastic, rowdy, deafening street scene literally beneath our feet, and the monstrous BBB passed late last night and will bring misery and ruination to millions of our countrymen, plus the fact that I'll be amped up on prednisone for a lot longer than we expected. It all adds up to quite a scene, with chaos everywhere you look, inside and out.

Plus, there's the constraining and strangely liberating fact that we can't travel the same way going forward because we're time boxed by how much of this spendy new drug I'm likely to be on until the end means we're transitioning sharply and abruptly into a new phase of our lives. It's a demarcation point every bit as sharp as it was on the day I was inducted into the army in late 1968 and CJ's blissful newlywed existence was permanently changed overnight.

So I think I've never seen a more natural spot for Team Anderson to exit stage right and roll onto another stage right next door. We're off to see the world, we're gonna follow that yellow brick road, we're gonna do us some Tyenne Travelin'. You come too.

A comment on this wonderful work, which I've known of since I was an adolescent. I admired it at the time, but I'm astonished at how much richer it seems today after I've aged, gotten new insights from my experiences, and spent so many miles biking along walls such as these. Like beech forests, it's one of my favorite settings. Thanks for reminding me of it, Bob.

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