Hugo Schwyzer

My fiancee and I are home from a long weekend away with my family in Northern California. Lots of opportunity to relax and enjoy time with various uncles, aunts, and cousins, as well as to celebrate the Fourth of July. Growing up, my family had four holidays around which we gathered: Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Raised in a decidedly non-religious environment, I had no real understanding of the spiritual nature of the first and fourth of these; Easter was for bunnies and eggs, Christmas for trees and presents. I also had no idea that other Americans didn’t consider the Fourth to be of equal significance to the other three! It wasn’t until I was in college, and heard a roommate call the Fourth "just another day for a sale on soda" that it hit me that my familial fondness for Independence Day was not widely shared.

Mind you, our love for the Fourth is rooted less in patriotism than it is in the timing of the holiday. Mine is a family of teachers and professors; most of us (even those of us who teach summer school) have more free time in July than in virtually any other month of the year. This makes getting together on our little ranch for the Fourth much, much easier than on any of the other three major holidays.

But though spending time with family is vital, we don’t neglect patriotism entirely: we hang various flags about and pieces of bunting. The red, white, and blue is more decorative than actually symbolic, of course. Just as Easter is a time for pastels (green, yellow, pink); Thanksgiving a time for harvest colors (burnt orange,browns); Christmas a time for strong reds and greens — the nature of the Fourth is defined by red, white, and blue. My family does like to discuss politics, though our opinions run the gamut from far left to far right. On Monday during the late afternoon barbecue, one of my sixty-something cousins in the former category, noting that I had an American flag on my shirt, said "Hey, Hugo, since you’re wearing your flag, maybe I should have brought one of mine." Now, I’m not a passionate patriot, but since this particular cousin is Bay Area born-and-bred, I thought I’d ask him what flags counted as "his", if not the Stars and Stripes?  "Oh, I’d have brought the anarchist flag, or maybe the United Nations flag.  Those are the only flags I believe in", he said.  I grinned, clapped him on the shoulder, and changed the subject to ice cream. 

I realize how heavily influenced I have been by my family’s collective insistence that disagreements about politics and religion are insufficient reasons to dislike someone.  Looking out at my family on Monday afternoon as they milled about, beers and cocktails in their hands, balancing paper plates loaded with burgers and salads, I saw two Mormons; one Wiccan (at least she has been for the past two decades); several Libertarians; an evangelical who gives regularly to Focus on the Family; a Captain in the Navy Reserve;  a self-proclaimed anarchist; at least two former board members of local chapters of Planned Parenthood; and the former president of the League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark, and Union City.   Yes, there was talk of Iraq and the Supreme Court, and I heard many a disagreement.  But no one lost their appetite or their temper because they were forced to listen to political or theological views with which they disagreed.  I’m so grateful to have been raised with that commitment to civility, even when confronted by the appalling positions of one’s loved ones.

I hope to have pictures up by the end of the week.