The Fourth of July

by Terry L Gardner

Rated G

TOS, Sarek, Amanda, Spock

Disclaimer: Star Trek and its many characters belong to Paramount.

Summary: It’s the Fourth of July and the city of San Francisco offers many kinds of activities to celebrate it.

~ooOoo~

It had been a beautiful morning in San Francisco, a perfect day for the annual Fourth of July Picnic in the Golden Gate Park. They had participated in many activities such as the watermelon eating contest, the best homemade pie contest, the three-legged race and more. The competition activities were organized in groups according to abilities. After all it would not be fair for beings to compete against those that had far superior physical strength and abilities.

Amanda had organized the celebration for the embassy staff and their families in the park and Sarek was quite proud of her. Amanda was well liked by most of his staff and they had volunteered to help plan and prepare the food.

Sarek had agreed to be one of the judges in the Vulcan division of the best homemade pie contest and Amanda had entered her squash pie in the Terran division and won. It tasted a lot like pumpkin pie but was more yellow in color, was much smoother in texture and melted in your mouth. The recipe had been in her family for ten generations and when Amanda made two pies for an embassy staff dinner, it was the first dessert to disappear from the dessert table.

Spock had been too young to enter most of the contests in previous years but this year was different. At the age of four, his motor skills were developed enough that he could compete with the other children. Sarek had also practiced the three-legged race with Spock and found that Spock was capable enough at it to enter the contest this year. They crossed the finish line in third place.

The Starfleet Academy Band and Chorus were there and performed patriotic songs in the early evening at twilight. Families from all over the city were there for the festivities. Everyone enjoyed the huge and glorious fireworks display that was set off in the night time sky. It had been an enjoyable experience for all and very educational. Spock had many questions about Independence Day and Amanda was able to answer them all.

After they came home and Amanda was putting Spock to bed, she said to him, "After the concert at the park, you told me that the song you liked best was God Bless America by Irving Berlin. Do you know the story about why Mr. Berlin wrote that song?"

"No, Mother, I do not."

"Well, back in those days some people probably thought he wrote it because he believed it would be a popular song but that wasn’t true. In fact, Mr. Berlin didn’t think that anyone but his closest friends would ever hear his little song. He wrote the song out of gratitude. You see, Mr. Berlin knew what it was like to live in a country where you didn’t have all the wonderful kinds of freedoms that people in America had. So when he immigrated to the United States of America, he wrote God Bless America in thankfulness for being allowed to come here and be free."

"One day the media moguls, who planned television specials for holiday viewing, came together to plan the annual Fourth of July Special. One of the men said that he wished there was a new song about America to introduce to the American public. One of the other men, who was a personal friend of Irving Berlin, spoke up and told the others that Mr. Berlin had written a great new song about America that would be perfect for the show. The other men got very excited and asked him to get Mr. Berlin’s permission to use the song on the show. They got permission and had a popular singer, named Kate Smith, sing it and it became popular over night."

"Many years later, when Irving Berlin had his ninetieth birthday, the media moguls decided to honor Irving Berlin for all the wonderful songs that he wrote. They had all the popular singers of the time come and take turns singing their favorite Irving Berlin song. After everyone sang and paid verbal tributes to him, they invited Mr. Berlin to come up on the stage. They had to have two people help him up the steps because he was frail and walked with a cane. When he came up and stood next to the emcee, a giant cake was brought out on the stage and everyone sang happy birthday to him. Then the emcee said to Mr. Berlin, we have heard many people’s favorite Irving Berlin songs this evening. What I want to know is this, which song out of all the wonderful songs you wrote is your favorite one, Mr. Berlin? That ninety-year-old man, with a long white beard and snow white hair, began singing God Bless America! The people were moved to tears. Irving Berlin had never stopped being grateful for his freedom."

"I like that story. Goodnight, Mother."

"Goodnight, Spock."