#Cheers to American glory this Fourth of July!

Revolutionary words got US

We’re coming into July Fourth. The historic day our Godblessed country was born. Beyond hamburgers, cold hot dogs, warm soda and uninvited ants, it’s a day for even young’ns to respect Old Glory.

America’s Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 founding fathers — lawyers, jurists, merchants, plantation owners, men of means — fully aware their penalty could be death. Ten were pastors’ sons. One, a shoemaker’s apprentice. Another, a servant. Benjamin Franklin, the eldest — age 70. South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge, the youngest — 26. Five were traitors, homes destroyed, lives lost in this new land’s revolution.

Not all forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4. John Hancock — before he had an insurance company — signed first. Most added their names Aug. 2. Changes were made between the declaration’s adoption and when it became official. Thus, not all voters were signers. Delegates from the 13 colonies voted aye — no dissent — that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” Other signatures were affixed later. I don’t know why. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t there at the time.

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Shots fired on NY

The Brits sent masses of troops. Thousands of New Yorkers died fighting or in squalid prisons on ships. Our city, enemy headquarters.

1783 following the Mother Country’s surrender, George Washington marched our ill-clad, weather-beaten, ragtag Continental Army down Broadway to Battery Park, reclaiming New York, then bid farewell to his generals at Fraunces Tavern.

Now we celebrate the land of the pilgrims’ pride, land where our fathers died, where from sea to shining sea we must give thought to purple mountain majesties, amber waves of grain, oceans white with foam, and a home where the deer and the antelope play somewhere sometime on some range someplace in Utah somehow.

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Land of ours!

This colony’s fight for independence was against the largest armada on Earth — 500 ships and a 30,000-man force. But we knew better. We did better then. We’ll do better now. Our Founding Fathers and many of us who learned as we aged are trying to do better. We’ll be better. OK, so maybe nobody but Roseanne Barr can sing the national anthem but . . . still . . . we are forever the United States of America.

You don’t like us? Then note how many legals, illegals, foreigners, tourists, hustlers, everybody who wants here. You see anyone lining up for Greenland? Looking to grab a timeshare in Venezuela?

So, bless your country, your flag, pledge your Pledge of Allegiance to no other blessed nation on Earth where citizens exist free to disagree. Dislike a mayor? Should there be anyone in our laundry list of Democratic maybes, vote for them. It’s your right. But never will we go under. We were born a nation under God.

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Try to pay attention

In school we learned the name Patrick Henry who said: “Give me liberty or give me death.” In 2021, minus a crate of classrooms, young people don’t even know who this was. One kid asked me if he lived in Queens.

How about Connecticut’s Nathan Hale, a 21-year-old Yale grad whose battalion joined George Washington against massive forces out to seize NYC? He was hanged after these last words: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

How about let’s all hope maybe Hollywood can possibly lure Scarlett Johansson to play Martha Washington. Then we’ll see who knows what.

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Fellow Americans, don your knee britches, pull up the silken hose, glue on those powdered wigs, hum “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” and try a little relaxed game of golf. Or sex. Things you don’t have to be good at to enjoy.

Have a happy Fourth — only in America, kids.