Every year for the Fourth of July, I try to make some sort of video or essay to post our share. Usually I talk about American exceptionalism, freedom, or morality.  Being the patriot at the party has always been a natural role to me. What can I say… I look good wearing the stars and stripes, I have no trouble drinking American beers, and I love to be loud.  Those things about me are still true (I’m even wearing my signature bandana right now) but for some reason this year I’m not feeling the same wave of patriotism.

Maybe it’s the hiker culture, or that I’m too far from the south, and maybe I’ve just grown cynical lately—but this year (even for the big 250) I’m really just not feeling it.  

As I’m trying to be fervently patriotic I cannot help but think of the disaster of the Iran war, the freemasonry of the founding fathers, the societal and political indifference to the Epstein scandal, and the sweeping cultural degradation, utter secularization, and demographic collapse of our nation.  I cannot help but ask sadly:

-Are we still the America I always loved so proudly? 

-What would the founders or the dead of Omaha and Okinawa say if they saw their nation now?

And worst of all

-Were we ever even that Nation on a hill or was it all a lie?

—This pessimistic state is where I was this morning. 

Today was the 4th of July and we were 15 miles from Vermillion Valley where cheeseburgers, cold beers, and surely some fellow patriots waited to welcome my sister and I to society after a week in the woods.  

With about 10 miles left we hit a wet and windless stretch of trail and found ourselves miserably swarmed by bugs, swallowing some with each breath.   After another mile, Kackie’s knee began to hurt, a few miles more and she was limping and in serious pain.  Eventually she was injured to the point where I was carrying her pack in addition to my own just so she could limp down the Mountain.  

With 3 miles to go, the trail joined a dirt road and after a while two trucks passed us and offered rides when they were coming back in a few hours, but hungry—we stumbled on.  

Then came a Grateful Dead stickered Jeep packed with 6 characters covered in piercings and colorful tattoos, a dog, and a roof rack overflowing with backpacks.  They immediately pulled over to ask if my sister was OK and upon learning of her struggle the three dudes and girl in the back hopped out of the jeep, and without even consulting the driver they volunteered the jeep to give her a ride while they waited on the side of the road.  

They fervently rejected any payment or compensation and acted legitimately happy to help us and to have met us.  We learned that they were locals and members of a reggae band (they smelled like they had been practicing), and that they each had permanent Fridays off in the summer to have time to hike.  They could tell from the cross and flag that I carry on my pack that we may have been different sorts of people but they didn’t care at all.  They were happy and eager to help.

As they drove Kackie the last 2.5 miles I ran as fast as I could (to maintain my continuous footpath).  While I was running I was so overcome with gratitude for these people that I was really becoming quite emotional.  

When they, returning, passed me running down the road, they stopped to say goodbye and that my sister was safely dropped off.  I thanked them and said to them emotionally what I had realized.

“I’ve been having a tough time loving America this week, but YOU GUYS ARE WHY I LOVE AMERICA”

-They returned to me “we feel the same about you my friend” and drove away waving and smiling earnestly with Rosalie McFall playing.  

This exchange may be meaningless (or worse) just cheesy to some of you, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it.  

Even if all the worst possible things imaginable are true about “America”.  If the American Empire is fading, if Trump is compromised by the Epstein files, if nobody will ever afford a house again, if the moon-landing was fake, if America was created by the Illuminati, if Mossad controls the CIA, if America will become a communist totalitarian technocracy—-it doesn’t matter.  It doesn't matter at because patriotism is a duty and more importantly it was never the government that I should have loved.

No matter how bad things are (or seem) to be—> I love America because of the deadheads who get out of their car to give you a ride.  I love America because of the veteran living in a wind farm who gives his well-water to hikers.  I love America for the waitress who gave me 14 water refills when I was dehydrated.  I love America for my Ommish hiker buddy, for my Marxist guitarist hiker buddy, for the trees, for the mountains and the park rangers.  

I don’t need to love our country for any reason other than the fact that it is mine and that I am its. Maybe next year I will make another argument for why America is “the best” but I shouldn’t need to.  Your mom’s pie recipe doesn’t have to be world renown for you to call it the best in the world—you just call it that because it is to you.  

We have been spoiled growing up surrounded by such American excellence that now in the digital age as we realize that we are only great and not perfect we feel cheated.  This happens to every kid when he learns that his dad isn’t actually superhuman, it doesn’t make the kid’s love less real afterwards but moreso.

So for today, the 4th of July, I love America because of deadheads and that is more than enough. To me, America might be a lot like those hikers who helped us. I disapprove of their sexual ethics and career choices, they disapprove of my conservative religious stiffness—but we both love the mountains and regardless of lifestyle the Grateful Dead are a beautiful American treasure.

Out of love I will fight for my way and they for theirs, but on the way I’ll return the favor and pick up stinky deadhead hitchhikers if I see them.

God Bless America