Bring us your broken dreams,
We'll give them time to mend,
There's still a lot of love,
Living in the promised land.
Since we reached 100 degree temperatures in May in Oklahoma and held them tightly through June, by July we've been baked through, so our skin begins to feel at ease in the heat, and 90 feels like a cool day. As a wedding gift, Dawn gave us tickets to Willie Nelson's Country Throwdown in Eufaula. With our tempered skin, we went out into the sun and joined Dawn for a day of cold beer and a lot of great singer-songwriters. We came for Willie Nelson, a show that DJ has been trying to see for 10 years, but found that we really enjoyed the other artists even more. I'd seen Jack Ingram a few times, but Craig Campbell, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, Jamey Johnson, Randy Houser, Dani Flowers, Caitlyn Smith, and most surprisingly, Lukas Nelson, were all great. Lukas Nelson has a great voice that is very similar to his father's, and when he joined Lee Brice for "Red House," we gained an even greater appreciation for his talent. As is true of all music festivals, the carnival of humanity provided another source of entertainment. Ghandi was there, shockingly drunk, cut-offs are now just jean panties, and, weirdly, we only saw one fight. We danced to "Always on my Mind" and had a wonderful time. We did have one major casualty, DJ's Kindle. Its loss is felt keenly.
We decided that the the rest of Independence Day weekend should be spent inside, with the puppies, kitten and Band of Brothers. We've watched all ten over the past two days, plus the documentary. I had never seen it and it had been 10 years since DJ had. It's beautiful and terrible. The Pacific was more gruesome, especially the Okinawa chapter, and while its portrayal of the realities of war were very well done, we did not feel as completely the connection to the human lives and bonds that Band of Brothers conveys. I am reminded of what a terrible cost is exacted upon millions of individuals by the unchecked lust of a few for power and domination. So, on this Independence Day, remember that we all have the duty to question and check. There's nothing more American than that.
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