Today my fellow Americans wake up to a new day, the ringing of last night's festivities still fresh in their ears as they wander outside to fill in the Tiauana Red Dragon divots left in their lawns. Our nation is another year older, if not another year wiser. Regardless of the political and social turmoil that has sent the people of this nation to their respective corners of the ring, I find myself feeling at ease with my fellow man.

I live in a small town which is isolated by the low lying, long Appalachian ridges. Once a massive shallow sea bed for a long-past super continent, this region is famous for its Anthracite; a coal created by the bodies of little oceanic critters falling to rest on the sea floor. Like many towns up and down the valleys, mine existed by the dirt on a man's hands for many decades. When the coal dried up and the mining industry cut and run, many of these towns literally began sinking into the ground. Poor, if any, regulation on the industry in the late 1800s-early 1900s meant companies had no responsibility to safely seal and buttress the many winding tunnels that exist under the townsfolk's feet, unnoticed until the local school's football field becomes a sink hole.

My town was fortunate. Unlike so many other around me, a large and well established corporation set up shop here which kept strong the vitality of this Any-Town America locale. All around us communities are vanishing, dying a slow, suffocating death as they are economically strangled by brain drain and simply a lack of industrial or corporate investment in the area. Blame too much or too little regulation; blame "Capitol City"; blame Trump or Obama; blame "the man"; any scapegoat will do for a man who's house has not seen meaningful repair since the '70s and who's local grocery stores are closing up shop. This area has been in economic recession since the Reagan years and nothing has yet trickled down to them, nor did the overflowing coffers of the Clinton administration offer any relief beyond the existential. Globalization hit this region like an atom bomb. The promises of the long-gone gilded age of the late 1970s through the late 1990s passed us by and nary a nickel fell from the pockets of the richest nation on Earth to show for it. Not here, anyway.

"Nothing changes" was once spoken with a naked sense of pride. And it is harder on the older generation than the younger. They're the ones who still live with the ghosts of a once-prosperous main street, little-changed since the 1950s and haunted with all the idyllic imagery that sentiment entails. The young leave by any means necessary, having only ever known a land of potholes and stifling socio-political entrapment. The hyper conservative attitudes that define the culture of this area can easily be forgiven when you consider the plight and history of the people. It is true that it creates a negative economic feedback loop which keeps a criminal element in power in the state's capitol, a parasitic form of democracy which cannibalizes the voter for the benefit of big oil and big coal. But for the man living just off Main Street, USA, that pride is an echo of a dream which once had legs. When you have nothing but the dignity of your views you are not willing to part with them easily and so attitudes rarely change around here.

There's not much to be proud of in the American wasteland, and yet I do feel my heart swelling with a warm pride for my fellow townsfolk this morning. Last night, despite political and economic devastation, and maybe in spite of circumstances out of their control, this whole town managed to summon love for a nation that has largely abandoned them. This dreary town who's residents have little to celebrate laughed and set the whole valley ablaze with the wondrous high pitched whining and deep, chest thumping popping of fireworks to celebrate our birthday back in 1776. The old and broken houses reflected the colors of the explosions festively as each new volley rose to cheers late into a night that on any other day is near silent. Divisiveness vanished, if only for an evening, and political opponents shared a beer as the grill fired up a late night hot dog.

They needed this. I needed this. I know once the hangover wears off today tires will quickly dig back in to the same old ruts. None of our problems were solved yesterday. But something elementally human took over this place last night, as it does on every Fourth of July, and I'm grateful to be in this place, with these people, to have shared it.

Take care of each other, America. It's increasingly clear that we're all we've got.