Page 125 - South Mississippi Living - July, 2021

makers do not need cranking anymore but there is still something sacred about dressing in red, white, and blue and waving a flag. It is still cool to be patriotic!
We still need to hear the stories about those in the
family and in the neighborhood that have served their country in uniform. We need to hear the story of how our grandparents met and married and how they both worked hard for years to be able to afford their first house and that first yard. We need to be reminded about the sacrifices made by our family’s heroes.
We need to laugh about the trouble we got into each summer when we were kids and how our parents knew what we had done before we even got home. We need to remember what it felt like to feel free all those childhood summers. Even when we were old enough to have summer jobs, we were free to experience life and learn from summer love and loss.
We know what Independence Day is but let’s be sure we spend some time this summer thinking about what it means. Let us not take our freedoms for granted. Remember how lucky we are to live in a country where we are safe to make our own decisions. Each of us gets to decide what kind of life we want to live and what values guide us. The flag we proudly fly in our yards is a symbol of the divine proclamation found in the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Let’s go all out this year and decorate the yard and the whole neighborhood. Drape the buntings, line the streets with flags, and dress the yard animals in red, white, and blue. Feel free to keep the decorations up all summer. Labor Day is right around the corner!
Holly Harrison has been a licensed interior designer for over 35 years. Shannon Stage has spent nearly 20 years in the giftware industry.
Together they own Sassy Bird Interiors in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
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