When I made my summer travel plans, I knew I’d be missing the Fourth of July. What didn’t occur to me is the irony of where I would be on this quintessential American holiday… England. I traveled to the United Kingdom to see a handful of friends — friends who live in Wales, a friend that lives in Scotland, and, for my last stop, friends that live outside London. Quite literally, on July 4, I was in England. You know, the bad guy we beat in the Revolution, which we celebrate on the Fourth of July.
I should share some other ironic tidbits. My ancestry, according to ancestry.com, is 41% Welsh, 32% English, and 11% Scottish, with a few other things thrown in. It’s like I returned to the motherland.
On my mother’s side, however, we have documentation of eight ancestors that fought in the American Revolution. Maybe they were criminals sent to set up the colonies for the Crown who decided to rebel.
This made me wonder how much these modern-day folks in the U.K. care that they lost to us Yankees? Do they mind that I am going to “party like a patriot” in the old enemy’s territory?
The answer is they don’t care at all, and they tend to party even harder than us Yanks.
Do they care that we ripped off almost all their city and town names and recreated them in “New” England? Are they offended that we dumped tea into Boston Harbor many moons ago?
These tea swiggers think us unoriginal in our copycat ways and have long forgotten about our Boston Tea Party.
Was it a problem that I am from the North Shore of Boston — Massachusetts being where the “shot heard ‘round the world” occurred and officially started the American Revolution?
No problem about my place of residence. Instead, I was met with “I love your accent,” “I love your American confidence,” and “What do you think of Biden and Trump?”
Even American politics were of little interest, because guess how the British spent July 4… voting in their own national election, and that’s what was top of mind here.
Did you know that “Yankee Doodle” was at first a song the British sang to make fun of us? Taking the words Yankee, a term for American colonists, and doodle, a Dutch word for simpleton, the Brits made up the song to mock the disorganized colonists they served with during the French and Indian War.
I think Yankee Doodle might now be synonymous with the agreeable television character, Ted Lasso, that many residents of the U.K. seem to love.
All I know is this Yankee Doodle had a dandy time in the motherland. Until next time, U.K., cheerio.
