Today, it was announced that the Higgs Boson — either the lynchpin or the downfall of the Standard Model of physics — was discovered. It’s also the Fourth of July, so this seems exactly the correct intersection between the two … and, for the first time, ILLUSTRATED!
04 JULY 2006
Last night my wife Jayne and I engaged in our little ritual of watching the musical “1776″ and went to bed sometime around 2 AM, having renewed our vision of “America.” When I got up on July 4, today, I turned on CNN for space shuttle launch coverage, and, after the anchors congratulated themselves on their impressive picture of the launch pad, they launched into one of those junk news bits that 24-hour news demands.
Where were you in 1976 for the Bicentennial? they asked. And that reminded me of what I’d intended to write and celebrate today. It was a unique sort of American experience, strangely concerned WITH and not concerned at ALL about the 200th National Birthday Celebration. In a profound way, my writing career began in earnest on the Fourth of July, 1976, the Bicentennial. But before I tell you where I was, I need to tell you how I got there.
