I hope everybody enjoyed their elongated Fourth of July holiday weekend.

We had some beautiful weather here in New England.

And you know, the Fourth of July, I always have a lot of mixed emotions on that holiday.

I mean, it is a great American holiday.

But you know, it fills me with joy and sadness at the same time because I really like commemorating

what America was and the whole idea of what independent stood for and what made America

different because being an American was really different than being a German or being French

or being Italian.

I mean, not that there's anything wrong with living in any of those countries.

And I don't blame people for being patriotic about those countries.

But being an American was very different because all these other countries throughout the

world, you know, they all basically, they were ruled by kings and they gradually were able

to get some of their rights, right, from the crown.

The crown surrendered some rights to the subjects.

And so everything basically flowed from the top up.

But America was a different story.

I mean, once we declared our independence, and you know, interestingly enough, I just

read a survey that said only, I think only 75% of the adults who were surveyed knew from

which country America won its independence.

And I think even a smaller percentage, I think 70% or one third rather didn't know what

year America won that independence from.

You know, I wonder if the people who didn't know the year that America won its independence

...