The Glorious Fourth...sigh

Here we are at what is usually called the Glorious Fourth of July, and while there will be fireworks and choruses of "America the Beautiful," we all know that these are not the most glorious or beautiful of times for Uncle Sam and his brood.

We remain grateful for what the United States has given us--jazz, the Salk vaccine, the ice cream cone--but for those of us with deep roots in Bad Axe, Michigan, we can only hope that someone, sooner rather than later, says, "And now, back to our regular program."

So this year we'll skip "Yankee Doodle Dandy." But we invite you to sing along with this gentle amusement, to the tune of "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

"Be kind to your web-footed friends,
For a duck may be somebody's mother.
They live out there in the swamp,
Where the weather's cold and dawmp.
Now you might think that this is the end.
Well, it is."