Grilled Meats, Fireworks & Beer…

Without liberty, our choices are limited.

I hit thirty years sober this past May. I stopped eating meat in 1989. I quit buying and launching fireworks only a few years ago.

The old saying goes, “If you’re not a liberal at 25, you have no heart; and if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 50, you have no brains.” And yet the older I get, not only am I even more liberal but my tendencies are growing more radical.

I don’t think I am doing it wrong. I know what I like, I follow my path, I deal as honestly as I can with my fellow man, I take little besides photographs and I leave behind little more than footprints. I recycle. I have struggled to keep my passport and Library card up to date, but I never missed my driver’s license renewal and I always vote.

I own all my mishegoss. I don’t blame anyone else for my shortcomings and I acknowledge those who help to make me a better person.

But I apparently can’t ever be an American patriot, which Merriam-Webster explains,

Ultimately derived from Greek patrios, meaning “of one’s father,” patriot entered English via French patriote — meaning “fellow countryman” or “compatriot” — during a time of political unrest in western Europe that was characterized by infighting among fellow countrymen — especially among those…