{"id":55376,"date":"2023-07-05T01:42:05","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T01:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55376"},"modified":"2023-07-05T01:42:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T01:42:05","slug":"fourth-of-july-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55376","title":{"rendered":"Birthday parties: a serious blast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I love birthday parties. They commemorate another year around the sun for those of us able to enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, I also enjoy national parties, such as the one the USA is celebrating today as it turns 247 years young. Yes, we&#8217;re still a young nation, given the comparative ages of many nations with which we share this good planet Earth. I have had the pleasure of visiting countries in Asia and Europe, where they count their ages in millennia, not mere years.<\/p>\n<p>This Fourth of July will be a quiet one for my family and me. We are still mending our shattered hearts. My wife left us in February after a brief, but ferocious, fight with cancer. My sons are hurting, as is my daughter-in-law and granddaughter.<\/p>\n<p>I will return eventually to celebrating our national birthday. Just not this year.<\/p>\n<p>The Fourth of July is intended to celebrate a great nation. It has always been great, even with its occasional dents and dings and, yes some hideous policies that have been sent to the crapper.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to enjoying the birthday party once again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love birthday parties. They commemorate another year around the sun for those of us able to enjoy the ride. Moreover, I also enjoy national parties, such as the one the USA is celebrating today as it turns 247 years young. Yes, we&#8217;re still a young nation, given the comparative ages of many nations with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=55376\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Birthday parties: a serious blast<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1785,2257,10124],"class_list":["post-55376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-independence-day","tag-kathy-anne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55377,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55376\/revisions\/55377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}