Landscapers sheered off the tops of my neighbor's tender onion patch a couple of months ago.  Everyone except the neighbor raised a ruckus over the carelessness of an oaf wearing a headset while swinging a weed-eater.  My neighbor casually re-bedded the clipped shoots and went about the business of nurturing her small garden. 

A few weeks later, she shared a tasty "mess" of garden onions and leafy lettuce with us.  Even though we who care for this elderly lady still shake our heads at the head-set-laden landscapers who grace our lawns weekly, she continues to leave a cooler of water on her deck for them. 

There has to be a moral in there somewhere. 

I'm just too caught up with the amnesty shamnesty and the stealthing of the North American Union to find it right now.  In the interim, I'll turn to the wisdom of two of my favorite national folksters.

Unless he pools political or sings -- Garrison Keillor remains one of my favorite story-tellers. 

Today is Independence Day, celebrating the day in 1776 that the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, and the United States officially broke from the rule of England.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in a second-floor room on Market Street in Philadelphia, on a little lap desk that he had designed himself. He described the task in a letter to a friend, saying, "The object of the Declaration [is] not to find out new principles, or new arguments... but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.... [It is] intended to be an expression of the American mind."

Jefferson finished the first draft after a few days work and sent it to Benjamin Franklin on the morning of June 21, asking for suggestions. Franklin made just a few changes. In the most famous passage, Jefferson had written, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable." Franklin changed it to, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The Continental Congress made a lot more changes to Jefferson's draft when they considered its adoption. They deleted passages that attacked the British people, rather than just the king, and they cut an entire paragraph in which Jefferson had attacked the king for perpetuating the slave trade. The last five paragraphs were considered too long and rambling, and so they were reduced by half. In total, they made 86 changes, eliminating 480 words and leaving 1,337. Jefferson found the process of revision extremely painful. He later said, "I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to these mutilations."

One of my favorite social observers is Thomas Sowell.  The man is beyond insightful, brilliant and articulate; he's a fellow-tarheel .... 

There is nothing automatic about the way of life achieved in this country. It is very unusual among the nations of the world today and rarer than four-leaf clovers in the long view of history.

It didn't just happen. People made it happen -- and they and those who came after them paid a price in blood and treasure to create and preserve this nation that we now take for granted. More important, this country's survival is not automatic. What we do will determine that. Too many Americans today are not only unconcerned about what it will take to preserve this country but are busy dismantling the things that make it America.

You may have suspected that I'm overly protective of neighbors, "mutilated" onions (as compared with Jefferson's writing) or that I erred in not capitalizing the t in "tarheel" above. 

It was all deliberate.  

I'm just "made" that way -- borrowing a reference from Dr. Sowell's article.   

Plus, I didn't want my affinity for my state to be confused with an affinity for the UNC Tarheels. 

And that -- for those paying attention -- is no more a digression or loose association or idiosyncrasy than is being dismayed that some oaf with a headset and a weedeater would be so callous and irresponsible as to sheer off my neighbor's onion sprouts.

So read all of Sowell's article.  He's a wise man ... and God knows -- as we celebrate our Nation's Independence, we need a few more wise men reminding us what we celebrate.

And, yes -- on this Fourth of July, I'm having hotdogs again -- this time, loaded with fresh onions from my neighbor's garden.