Heating Up on the Fourth

INDEPENDENCE DAY has always been a big part of my life, from the excitement of fireworks in childhood to the present. I rememer that by the time I was fifteen or so I had noticed that every Independence Day the sun shone, and it never rained. This was remarkable in the nineteen sixties, when in the area in which I lived it was normal to have at least a brief pop up rain shower most days. Special days stand out. On July 4, 1989, my thirty four year old self, half a lifetime ago, hiked up Aspen Mountain in Aspen, then was rewarded by a free ride down on the ski lift. In 1976, I was in New YOrk for the Bicentennial, which older people will recall was a relly, really big deal. Tall masted 18th century sailing ships filled New York harbor, and floated up and down the Hudson, to the delight of what was estimated to be about twenty million people in the city. I attended a baseball game between the Yankees and Kansas City Royals. One of the most massive fireworks displays in world history took place that night on Staten Island. But the Independence Day just past was perhaps the most monumental of all, for me, and for everyone, in not so wonderdaul a way. t was the ottest day in teh history of planet eearth, according to scientists. Predictably, percipient people all over the word made the same comment: "This is a record that will soon be broken, and broken often." And indeed it was, on the very next day, July 5th. Then it was broken again on July 6th. Perhps it is now time to begin fervantl hoping and praying that it doesn't continue to be broken every day throughout July, and beyond. It will, of course. People my age will be leaving this world as climate change truly starts to become frightening, more frightening than it is now, which is certainly frightening enough. It would be nice if we could, as we go out, find reason to believe that the human race has built a firm foundation for reversing it, and preserving a future for humanity. Independence from death by heat. independenc Day from our own folly.