Happy 4th!

Happy 4th, fellow Patriots! It is very good to see that our nation has persevered yet another year. Stay vigilant and perhaps it will last longer!

I have quite a few open carry stories to impart. Here is how it all went down...

July 3: I met up with Lorax3 down in Clairemont to go transfer my new Stag AR-15 lower at Gussler's. I used Lorax3's Iphone to check for schools and carried once the coast was clear. Walking up to the garage I saw that our good friend Mike (bplvr!) was there! It was like a CGN reunion! HAHA! Mike got out his usual crack about me harboring/storing two cosmetologists in my closet to a couple that I had never met before (total joke, read here) and multiple laughs were had. What made the whole trip even better is that Enthusiast called Gussler while I was there! So rad!

After transferring my lower, Lorax3 and I debated about hitting up Costco. Since we were not 100% committed about the school zone issues there, we decided to skip OCing there and instead go back to Clairemont to have Mexican food. We eventualy selected Cotijas and had no problems while I was carrying.

July 4: I didn't get to carry to the fireworks due to 626.9 issues preventing handgun carry and an illegal municipal ordinance preventing rifle carry in Escondido but I did get to carry to Ralph's later on that night in La Jolla with Macadelic4 and as usual, the experience was blissful. I was in the store for about 30 minutes and the only person that asked anything about it was a young guy that asked what kind of gun it was.

Now, if only a cute girl will come up and ask about that sort of thing...

July 5th: I spent the night at Macadelic4's and I woke up at 10AM. Since it is Sunday and I go to mass on Sundays I headed out to go to church but I lost my way to my original church and I ended up going to St. Catherine Laboure in Clairemont. I carried to mass and contrary to popular belief, no one fainted or had a heart attack! In fact, not one person asked me a thing about it! I was there for at least 1.5 hours (I waited after mass to talk with the Father Eckert, freaking coolest priest in the area!) and it was the best mass I have ever been to. Father Eckert recited this really cool poem...

I Am America

I was born on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. I am the United States of America! The bloodlines of the world run in my veins because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am millions of living souls and the ghost of millions who have lived and died for me.

A million and more of my countrymen have died for freedom and I am their monument. My ancestors left their blood on the green at Lexington and the snow at Valley Forge, on the walls of Fort Argonne Forest, on the beaches of Salerno and Normandy and the sands of Okinawa, on the bare, bleak hills called Pork Chop and Old Baldy and Heartbreak Ridge.

I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard ‘round the world. I am Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys, and Davy Crockett. I am Lee and Grant and Lincoln.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat fields of Kansas, and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania. I am the fertile fields of the West, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor, and the Merrimac.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific, three million square miles throbbing with industry and farming. I am more than 5,000,000 farms; I am forest and field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages and busy cities that never sleep.

You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his loaf of bread under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” as the calendar turns.

I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am the laughter of a small boy as he watches a circus clown’s antics. I am the light of triumph in the eyes of a six-year-old boy as he reads aloud for the first time. I am 175,000 schools and colleges and 275,000 churches where people worship God as they think best. I am a ballot dropped in a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, and the voice of a choir in a cathedral.

I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to a congressman. I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster. I am Tom Edison and Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greeley, Will Rogers, and the Wright Brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Daniel Webster, and Jonas Salk. I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Paine.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things I am. I was conceived in freedom, and God willing, in freedom will I spend the rest of my days. May I always possess the integrity, the courage, and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom, and a beacon of hope to the world.

God Bless America!

(This may not seem like a poem, but the way Father recited it, it was much like a poem)

The final hymn was "God Bless America" and it was really, really nice to hear. I haven't shed tears like that since my Grandfather's funeral or my brother's car accident.

With that, I have some work to attend to. Keep the flames alive, fellow patriots!

CARRY ON and GOD BLESS!

-N8