{"id":855,"date":"2010-07-04T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=855"},"modified":"2010-07-04T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-04T08:00:00","slug":"happy-independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=855","title":{"rendered":"Happy Independence Day!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/TC85O5nnvaI\/AAAAAAAACZo\/UzxnRT2O6eE\/s1600\/Meonroad1.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 251px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/TC85O5nnvaI\/AAAAAAAACZo\/UzxnRT2O6eE\/s320\/Meonroad1.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489669398935879074\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family:verdana;\">Today is Independence Day in the United States, marking our nation&#8217;s 234th birthday.  Happy birthday, America!  Here&#8217;s a recent photo that serves this day well (that&#8217;s me on my bike in the background).<\/p>\n<p>This morning, I will accompany two friends to be sworn in as our nation&#8217;s newest citizens.  I coached them as they studied for their citizenship test.  These friends have worked hard and have been very patient &#8212; one for ten years, one for twelve &#8212; to earn the privilege of becoming a U.S. citizen.  Their ceremony will be held at Ft. McHenry, which is in Baltimore.  Nothing is more special than to have such a ceremony than at the location that served as the inspiration for Frances Scott Key to write the poem that became the lyrics to our national anthem, the <i>Star Spangled Banner<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, after the morning celebration is over, I have to rush right back home and get to work on that long-list of honey-do projects around the house.  The Warden requires it.  So no crab feast at my brother&#8217;s this year.  I&#8217;ll miss it, but I&#8217;m doing what I have to do.<\/p>\n<p>Life is short:  celebrate the birthday of the United States!<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is Independence Day in the United States, marking our nation&#8217;s 234th birthday. Happy birthday, America! Here&#8217;s a recent photo that serves this day well (that&#8217;s me on my bike in the background). This morning, I will accompany two friends &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=855\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}