Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Fireworks
- Has the extended midweek Independence Day celebration given a needed push to national cohesion?
- Could much loved Round Lake (Sister Lakes Michigan), holding off major display until last night, be a national model for expectations fulfilled while adding promise for the future?
- Four years ago, after twenty five consecutive years of July 4 shooting, why did the fireworks King of Round Lake pass the torch (and display barges with hundreds of 3,4,5 and 6 inch diameter tubes)?
- Got old, spent a lot, and got burned (up and out) enough?
- Is abdication one thing but demise on display another?
- Anyway, with boom beautiful bursting across last night’s dark sky, watched by thousands along the shore, and an adventuresome few cruising too near center lake, show action, did the once crowned one, having encouraged barge positioning for optimum viewing, thrill and declare it the best show ever?
- With a finale that isn’t and never can be, did cheers of gratitude echo across the lake as the good smell of black powder and smoke lingered?
- So essentially American, so wonderful, so needed?
- Is the glory all that but, even more telling, the reality of everyone on the lake pitching in these last days to make it happen?
- Is it the pitching in that always makes the difference with belief and pride in country sustaining forces?
- Do we commit to the American show that must always strive, must always be, The Best Show Ever?
- Is that what it takes to earn cheers from around the lake?
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. “ The answers and actions are yours.