(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
It's the Glorious Fourth, a weekend when Americans celebrate our independence from Great Britain by running a motorboat (BOAT APPROACHING, FAST, ACROSS WAVES) at very high speeds over inland bodies of water and towing a girl in a red bikini on water skis (BOAT PASSES, SS SHRIEK OF DELIGHT OF GIRL IN BIKINI), which is a very un- English thing to do (TR BRIT DISAPPROVAL: Oh dear dear, how distasteful ETC ETC), and instead of tea and crumpets we eat hot dogs and we drink beer (BIG BELCH) (TK BRIT TUT-TUTTING) and it's not warm beer, it's cold beer, that's what makes it feel so good coming up (BELCH) (TK TUT-TUTTING) and instead of playing cricket we play softball (KONK OF BALL ON BAT, CROWD ROAR) and instead of sitting under a tree and writing in our journals (TR BRIT: Today as I gazed up at the clouds.....) we set off cherry bombs (EXPLOSION), set them off in garbage cans (BOOMING EXPLOSION), set off bottle rockets (WHOOSH OF ROCKETS, EXPLOSIONS), to show that we're not sensitive and introspective, we're violent, and do we go around in tweeds or linen, no we don't, we go around in shorts and T-shirts, the louder the better, and if we see someone in a white linen suit, we throw him in the pond (TR BRIT PROTEST, THEN SPLASH OF MUCK AND MUD), and we don't listen to Elgar or Purcell or Britten on the Fourth, we listen to bands (SINGER SCREAM) that make your hair stand straight up and it's all to show those stuffed shirts that we cleaned their clocks back in 1776 and that we are not like them in any way, shape or form ---- (CRIES OF AGREEMENT, FISTS) ---- we are not cake-eaters, we are water-skiing (BOAT), beer-drinking (BELCH), rock and roll (SCREAM) cherry-bombing (BLAST) Americans, and if anyone objects (TR: Could you please be a little quiet?) we throw him into the pond, and as a final show of independence, every Fourth of July, we deliberately speak very bad English (SS: Him and me are goin to the fireworks.) just to show that you can't cow Americans into talking a certain way, you and me talk exactly how we please, and if someone doesn't like it (TR PROTEST, SPLASH OF MUCK AND MUD), then into the pond with him. There's no tea this weekend, no traipsing around with umbrellas, no Marmite, and let's pronounce our r's. Like hour. It's pronounced hour. It's not pronounced like this----- "Let us so conduct ourselves that if the British Empire should last for a thousand years, men shall say, This was their finest hour." Not like that. Like this. (TR: Hour.) Not "hour". (TR: Hour.) And I hope that every hour of this weekend, you'll enjoy yourself doing American stuff, eating American food (CRISP CRUNCH) like these chips ---- they're not crisps, they're chips, and what they call chips, are of course fries ---- and with those chips you'll want some beer (POP-TOP OPEN) and drink it cold (BELCH) and the empty beer can and blow it up with a firecracker (EXPLOSION) and go to bat and hit a home run (KONK OF BAT, ROAR OF CROWD) and the ball sails out high over the lake (MOTORBOAT) and the girl in the red bikini comes along on water-skis and she catches the ball one-handed (SS SHRIEK OF DELIGHT) and she comes to shore (BOAT MOTOR SLOWING) and falls in love with you of course. (SS: Him and me are going to get married!). And you and her do, and you drink more beer and you blow up things and you pronounce your r's. (TR: Our car is that Ford over there.) Happy Fourth of July everybody and if anybody isn't happy this weekend, then I say throw them in the pond. (SS PROTEST, SPLAT OF MUD AND MUCK)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor