July 4, 2021: There will always be fireworks on my mother’s birthday

July 4, 2021: There will always be fireworks on my mother’s birthday. She could have claimed a movie for her – “Born on the 4^th of July” exactly 159 years younger than America. So, as long as there are fireworks in America on Independence Day there will be fireworks for my late mother’s birthday. And the fireworks this year was the celebration of a victory. The aroma of cooking through my neighborhood as the distant thunder was heard through the night sky. On the TV screen Washington and New York came right after the other as they tried to outdo each other in the display of the end of an era. The President has promised that America will be doing cook outs today. Well from the looks of it, New York certainly cooked up the harbor with a firework show that signaled to the World that a new age in beginning. The dark days are over as a TV commentator said about New York, doing a comparison from one year ago to today. New York, I think she said, is back to life. Life indeed. Because we have had far too many deaths and even as the Mall in Washington DC was lit up with the colors of the flag and one of the military bands did the Anthem, some people are not so sure of the complete victory. Today, I received a message reminding that people have to wear a mask when on a plane. Hundreds were out by the Liberty Bell, and many more at the footsteps of Lincoln Memorial. The fireworks in every city was spectacular – it was almost like what Will Smith had said to his son, promising the child fireworks, and they came when the aliens were destroyed ironically by an electronic “virus” a brainchild of the Jeff Goldblum character in the movie called “Independence Day.” Today, America seems to be claiming independence from the virus. The right to congregate, the right to not wear a mask. And all hinges on the vaccine. Everyone seems to be experimenting. In UK, the sports events are testing the vaccine, in Calcutta the promise of the vaccine is leading to vaccination camps, in Long Beach the vaccine allows children to pet the fishes in the touch pool. It is mandatory to wear a mask on United Airlines Flights. Quarry Park in Winston Salem has fireworks going late into the night. It requires a negative result to the RT-PCR test to enter the USA. The malls are filling up in Calcutta and people are awaiting the end of the lockdown. There are clinical studies trying to find how effective the vaccine may be against mutations of the virus. Independence. We all covet that in all ways, and today’s celebration of America is special as the New Age begins from “sea to shining sea” as stated by Johnny Cash. I hope.