Notes following a landmark Independence Day, 2021.
There was a day long community celebration in Crestone to the east and a rodeo in Creede to the west, but here in the middle of the San Luis Valley it was a quiet summer Sunday. Normally flags line Monte Vista’s main street on the 4th of July, but I suppose the 4th being on a Sunday canceled that. Given current events, it felt apropos.
The day before I was talking with two gentlemen who have been doing what they can to stimulate business and community involvement in town. One noted that while every motel in Monte Vista was full, the only places to go out to eat on the holiday were the big chains of Dairy Queen, Sonic, and Subway. All of the great family sit-down restaurants in town were closed. These restaurants already close for a two, sometimes three-day Sabbath of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and if Independence Day had fallen on a Friday, these places likely would be closed then, too. Even Quincy’s, a local southern Colorado steakhouse chain, closed for the 4th, and it’s normally open seven days a week.
That’s a staggering amount of money left on the table to be claimed by the big chains, but the local family restaurant proprietors don’t care. The two gentlemen of my acquaintance, who had made heroic efforts in getting outdoor events going in these latter days of the pandemic hoax, were wondering if their continued efforts were worth the trouble. They weren’t the first or even the 22nd people to complain to them about this.
As a Christian, I’m all about having at least one day of the week off. But this is no mercy for the city of Monte Vista. When nearly every family-owned and operated restaurant in town closes on major holidays and Sundays and Mondays, sometimes Tuesdays, too, the tourists must wonder why they’re bothering booking rooms here when they can go someplace where things are open.
In the end, we all had a dark laugh over that classic virtue signal, “I only shop local.” Not when the local is closed, you don’t.
A post I typed out in fits and starts, then stayed up way past my bedtime to finish on Saturday night, was rewarded with the most views on this blog ever. I’m talking mid-two digits, and I’m grateful for every one of them. Although I plan to do more writing on the Current Crisis, there is a clarification I wish to make regarding yesterday’s broadside.
A key point of my post, that America as a country is gone, but Americans remain, could easily be misinterpreted for the vile heresy that is civic nationalism, i.e., that anyone can call themselves American once they set foot on American soil. Civic nationalism is often and aptly disparaged as “the Magic Dirt Theory,” and I most fervently believe it is a vile heresy. In my post, I’m addressing Americans. Not everyone is a who lives in Post-America is American, certainly no one who requires a hyphen between the “American” and their nationality/ ethnicity. I wanted to be clear on that.
Overall, I’m most proud with how I described what it was like losing two old friends over my absolute refusal to succumb to media-driven hysteria. The nerve I struck with some people on this was precisely the one I was aiming for. So many of us have had to rearrange the human furniture of our lives throughout this coup, with more than a few treasured pieces going to the curb. I will therefore endeavor to make my descriptions of my own social misadventures as universal as possible. A lot of good people feel alone in this Post-America dystopian hellscape. They shouldn’t.
The actual day of the 4th was as quiet as can be, quieter than even most Sundays. The night, however, bears mention. First, I find it charmingly ironic that only the Hispanos in my area have any interest or investment in fireworks for Independence Day. Whites can take it or leave it, and they mostly don’t bother.
It’s my understanding the manitos y manitas pile in cars and drive the long road south out of the San Luis Valley, all the way through New Mexico (a fairly vast state, in case you didn’t know), and into Mexico itself to pick up all the show-grade rockets and ordnance they can fit into the car. Then they drive back. Some people don’t even wait until dark to start popping them off.
To this old white man living on a fixed income and sometime-royalties, it seems an unconscionable expense of money and time. I enjoyed the show, though, all the way until I gave up at midnight. Even the moderate-to-heavy rain we got around 10:30 only slowed them down. Most of the airburst colors were green and gold, but I was heartened to see some red, white, and blue combinations blossoming above the trees.
Something I noticed amid the larger barrages on either one of two sides from my location was the steady pop-pop-pop-pop of semi-automatic gunfire. Given the reported ammunition shortages, this was quite the extravagance. I don’t remember hearing anything like that before, but I generally do more watching that listening when it comes to these affairs.
I laugh at you people wetting yourselves at this. Welcome to the country, chump, where everyone has a little something for the varmints lurking around the henhouse. For my part, I was comforted knowing that, when the former juvenile-justice inmates in the black masks and bricks and Molotov cocktails come down this way from the Front Range cities, it won’t be for far or long.
All told, it was a decent first Post-America 4th of July.
The Spirit is with us, if we want it.
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