250! That's a lot of candles.

“And Peleg lived thirty years and begat Reu.” It turns out that most of the guys were having babies at age thirty in the book of Genesis. Serug, Reu, Eber, Salah – they were all thirty-something. Nahor was twenty-nine when he had his boy, which raised eyebrows I’m sure.

Yeah, it just seems kind of normal, even thousands of years later, that they were having babies in those “thirty years” when the men were picking fantasy cantaloupe-throwing teams, eating hot wings right off the chicken, and kayaking down the Tigris. That’s family-starting time, but it’s what happened after Reu was born that I’m a little more concentrated on here. 

“And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years.” Did you get that? That’s two hundred and thirty-nine years total. I’m just saying that’s a long time to walk the face of the earth with the name Peleg. And that’s a lot of candles to blow out before oxygen tanks were even invented.

There is someone who’s celebrating an even bigger birthday this year. America’s going to be 250 years old this summer. Pshh, take that, Peleg!

It seems only fitting that I commemorate this great milestone with a tribute to American History, and the early events that made her a country.

It all started when a bunch of men got together and had a tea party. This should never happen, and really rarely does anymore. Whereas women understand that a tea party is for delicacies like cucumber sandwiches, and the tea is sipped daintily from heirloom china, holding your pinky just so, the men took it an entirely different direction that day. 

Is anyone really surprised that when the Y chromosome got involved in the tea party, everything got rowdy and then escalated to the point they were throwing entire crates of tea overboard? I can just hear them now, “Whoever throws the least amount of crates over has to shave their ponytail!”

Some people will probably read this and tell me that the men were more domesticated then, coming from England and all, and probably eating crumpets and stuff while wassailing down the street in short pants and stockings. I’m not buying it. Come on, how do you think the Liberty Bell got cracked?

Not long after the men’s tea party in Boston, the British got mad that they weren’t invited, and they started an all-out war. Paul Revere got wind of this, and happened to be up late doing a term paper on the Revolutionary War, and got on his horse at midnight to go wake everyone else up. He bravely sounded the warning, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” And hysteria ensued.

Betsy Ross then said, “What? Someone’s coming? I left the sewing machine out, and there’s red, white, and blue fabric everywhere! Someone run get the straw broom and the feather duster, quick!”

While Betsy was an excellent seamstress, she failed to understand the critical nature of the moment, but astute soldiers armed themselves for battle against the approaching troops coming in red housecoats. Americans were even privy to which direction the British were invading from, being there was a code in place. “One if by land, and two if by sea.”

Two what?! It turns out that it was lanterns, though in sixth grade history when we were teaching this to our boys, they determined it must have been belches. They figured that was the best strategy, and one that could be both easily employed and heard.

There is much more about the history of America’s birth 250 years ago, but the bottom line is, I am so grateful for the soldiers and pioneers that made it possible, for the long heritage of brotherhood we have held, the many off-key voices that have sung before every ball game about the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are blessed indeed.

This July 4, we will celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence a full 250 years ago to the day. Happy birthday, America! We are a nation, and we are feeling pretty patriotic about it. We will shoot fireworks like they’re going out of style, but they never will, particularly along interstate exits where it's your last chance to ever buy them. We will grill hot dogs, and eat too much homemade ice cream in celebration of our freedom and heritage. And then all this will be followed by . . . 

The belch heard ‘round the world.