Expat Patriotism

This morning I went out for coffee with a friend of mine, who graduated in June and is periodically back in Middelburg for a day or two while moving her things between her mother's home, her boyfriend's place, and her new place in Utrecht. After coffee, we did some wandering and shopping, as is usually the case with our meetings.

Van Leeuw, the multimedia store, was having a 3-for-15 sale of CDs, and miraculously, there were a lot of good choices - which is so rarely the case with such things. I had a hard time choosing from Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Woody Guthrie, Chris Isaak, and the Counting Crows, but in the end I settled on Wilson Pickett and Woody Guthrie, since they were both two-disc albums, and Chris Isaak, because I simply love him.

During our other wanderings, such as into the HEMA and the H&M to look at fun things like swimsuits (despite the overcast weather on a day I had been planning to go to the beach), we somehow got to talking about the 4th of July. She asked how I had celebrated.

Celebrate the 4th of July? Now that's something I would never have thought to do. I have had a little Thanksgiving celebration the last two years, but the 4th of July?

I shook my head. The 4th of July isn't very much fun now, I said. Especially since September 11th... to me, it's associated with the brand of Patriotism that supports President Bush and the war and the Patriot Act and those types of things. Basically, all it is, is fireworks and a barbecue - that is, if it isn't raining.

I just got home and put on my new Woody Guthrie CD. A few minutes later, I heard the familiar lyrics of "This Land is Your Land," and sang along. Now this is my kind of patriotism.

In very different news: The Gemeente Middelburg as chosen today to re-lay the cobblestones on my tree-lined street. There are jackhammers buzzing and bulldozers bulling (because I guess they aren't dozing) and men in bright orange vests walking back and forth in front of my window. Of all of the weekdays they could have chosen to do this, why did it have to be the weekday I didn't have to work?