Like many Americans, I grew up in a small town. Lexington, SC was a lot like every other small town in America. We cherish things to which folks in big cities don't pay much homage. For instance, we enjoy our celebrations. Every Fourth of July, the county of Lexington has its annual Peach Festival in the little town of Gilbert where we enjoy everything from peach ice cream to peach pie. It's an excuse to get together to listen to great patriotic music and party. What sometimes gets lost in the process is the reason why we're celebrating. Lee Greenwood sums it up best in his popular song "Proud to be an American."

On July 4, 2009, America turns 233 years old. Intellectually, I suspect we are perhaps no better than allot civilizations on the face of the earth, but emotionally none can match us. In spite of all the things that are wrong with our country, it's the things that are right about it that outweigh the negatives.

We live in a grand country. This is the only country in the world that I know of where a Roman Catholic Priest can drink Mogan David Wine from a Mason jar at a Knights of Columbus Hall just up the street from a Ku Klux Klan rally.

It's a country that allows an estimated 31,250 new millionaires to be born each year… that's 85 a day or almost four per hour. It's a country where the gross national product of Illinois equals that of China… of Ohio equals that of India… of California equals that of all of Africa.

We live in the greatest civilization on the face of the earth and yet the average age of the world's great civilization is but a mere 200 years. That is but a speck on the backdrop of time.

Most of these great civilizations, history tells us, progressed from bondage to spiritual faith…from spiritual faith to great courage…from great courage to liberty…from liberty to abundance…from abundance to selfishness… from selfishness to complacency…from complacency to apathy… from apathy to dependency… and from dependency back into bondage again… all within the short span of just 200 years. Freedom is up to you and it's up to me… and it isn't free.

No individual nation shall be so quickly humbled as the individual or nation that comes to rest on its laurels. For those that come to rest on them will surely come to rust on them. Freedom comes with a price. Over our history, many have sacrificed so that we might have the right to disagree with each other. Some have paid with their lives; others have paid by the lives of loved ones they have lost.

In the fall of 1864, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. Lincoln's letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript. Later it was revealed that only two of Mrs. Bixby's five sons died in battle (Charles and Oliver). One deserted the army, one was honorably discharged, and another deserted or died a prisoner of war. Lincoln's letter attempted to console a heartbroken mother and is a nice way to remember those who paid an ultimate price with their lives.