Have You Never Been Experienced?

Today is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence. The vibe is subdued, even accounting for the heat. Walking the streets, I didn’t see any homes going wild with patriotic decorations. Not even the ones you’d naturally expect to go way over the top. It’s not like people are taking down the American flags superimposed with a bald eagle clutching AR-15s in each claw, or anything, but there’s nothing much net new going up either.1

While out and about, I swung by the weekly farmers market. We have a great one in my town. It’s large with dozens of stands full of high-quality produce from local farmers. South Jersey still has many working farms near me. The offerings are significantly better than anything you can find at even the best supermarkets, but I loathe the farmers market experience.

The market opens at 7:00 AM and was already elbow-to-elbow by 8:00 AM with more people inbound from every direction. About 80% of the crowd is not actively shopping, opting instead to wander aimlessly or mill about, soaking in the farmers market experience. Which is fine, unless you’re someone trying to actually buy food, and now you have to navigate this crowd of people pretending to shop. They’re having fun though.

I expect to spend most of the rest of the day indoors out of the sun. We’re in the middle of a heatwave. Temperatures hit 39°C the last couple of days and will do so again this afternoon. Fortunately, my house stays pretty cool, probably because I have big trees shielding me. I don’t even think about running the AC until temps hit around 33°C. There’s no need. Thirty-nine is another matter entirely.

The heat breaks tomorrow.

Footnotes

  1. I think we’ve reached peak flag and vexillophilia may be in the decline. You still see a lot of identity flags flying, LGBTQIA+, Thin Blue Line, Trump 2028, pirates, and so on, but the flags are getting smaller and people have stopped ironing them. It sounds like I’m being funny, but I’m even seeing the Stars and Stripes flown covered in creases from the packaging.2 That’s the kind of thing people going through the motions do.

    At any rate, it feels like how there was a time when every single car in the U.S. was adorned with a yellow ribbon, and then one day there were none, even though the war kept on for many years to come. ↩

  2. While probably not a technical violation of the literal letter of 4 USC 8: Respect for flag, it definitely goes against the spirit of the Flag Code to hang a shoddy-looking flag. I’m sure it never occurred to the authors anyone would even consider flying a Chinese-made polyester Old Glory in such a state, but here we are. ↩