Happy Fourth of July!

Lemme tell ya what today's all about!

Hiya, Friends!  Happy Fourth of July!  Happy Birthday, America!

I have a story I want to share with you about Independence Day, which is the holiday we're celebrating.  Are you ready to hear it?  Okay!

The date was a little before July 4, 1776.  The country was deep in the Revolutionary War.  The Continentals were fighting the British for their independence.  See where I'm going with this?

Anyway, morale among the citizenry was pretty low, what with the war going on and the lights, cable, and internet being out and all, so Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and John Hancock and a buncha other fellas from around the warring Colonies decided they needed to do something in order to boost people's morale, and then they got the idea:

They'd have a Fourth of July picnic and barbecue, but they needed something to celebrate, something to fire up the cannons and launch the bottle-rockets over.  And then it hit 'em: Independence from England and their dreadful, dreadful food!

You see, all along, the Colonists over here in America were forced to eat English food like bangers-n-mash, whatever that is, and blood-pudding, and to drink weak tea that they HAD to buy from an English company and they also HAD to pay an exorbitant tax on.  In fact, it was the tea that started the whole war, if ya can believe it.  And finally, they just had to say 'enough's enough, England.'

It's a shame about all those watermelons and the cannons.

So back to Jefferson and Adams and Hancock.  They picked July 4, 1776 for the day of their Big Ol' American Cookout, because that's the day the Colonists traditionally brought their cooking kettles outside from inside, and did their best to enjoy their English foods with friends seated at long wooden tables, or on blankets on the ground.  Except, as a provision of their Independence from England and their Crummy English Food Anyway, Thomas Jefferson said they ought to have somebody cook nice meats outside on a grill.  Since Paul Revere was good about getting the word out, they asked him to ride around and tell people about the picnic on the Fourth of July, and to ask them to make different kinds of salads to bring to the picnic: potato and macaroni were suggested, and also some salads of the fruit variety.  Bakeries all over the Thirteen Colonies... Well, the Thirteen Original States by now, worked day and night, baking up enough buns for hot dogs and hamburgers.  John Adams suggested that instead of drinking nasty old weak tea from England at the picnic, the Forefathers order some of his cousin Sam's beer.  Sam had just taken up brewing beer, and it was kind of a thing, since the water was bad back then.

I forget who it was who asked the two armies to stop putting watermelons in their cannons for the duration of the July Fourth picnic, but somebody did, and it was good eatin' for days because of it!

I LOVE America!

Finally, July Fourth came, and the Declaration of Independence from England and All English Food was signed.  By the time they made the copy to go on display at Independence Hall and the Smithsonian Museum, they realized they had to shorten the title to the Declaration of Independence, but the real Declaration of Independence from England and All English Food is in a special warehouse someplace in South Dakota, where a lot of special artifacts are kept, or so the story goes.  A buncha people from all over the Thirteen Original States signed it, too, so that tells ya just how much people wanted to be able to eat what they wanted, and not English food!  The hot dogs and hamburgers and all those salads and Sam Adams's beer were all such a big hit that they let off fireworks and decided to make the whole Fourth of July Picnic and Barbecue an American Tradition!

It took a little longer for the British to let go of the former colonies, so the Revolutionary War raged on for a few more years after July Fourth, 1776, but it's July Fourth 1776 that we celebrate today, because that's the one that kicked off this Eatin' Holiday.  And you know there's nothing we Americans like better than a good fight and an Eatin' Holiday!

Well, it's a holiday, so that's where I'll end my History Lesson for Today.  It's pretty factual.  Enjoy your Eatin' Holiday, Friends, and I'll see ya tomorrow!  I love ya!  Muah!