Liberty by Garrison Keillor
It’s the Fourth of July in Lake Wobegon, but all is not well in the Little Town That Time Forgot. For the past six years the town’s Fourth of July celebrations have all been sensational. Rockets, cannons, painted bandwagons pulled by high-stepping Percherons, crack drum and bugle corps, the Leaping Lutherans Parachute Team, the Betsy Ross Blanket Toss, the Founding Fathers marching down Main Street lead by a stilt-walking Uncle Sam and Miss Liberty resplendent in her seven-pointed crown. All made possible by the efforts of Clint Bunsen, Chairman of the Lake Wobegon Fourth of July Committee.
But you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs and you can’t plan a spectacular Fourth of July celebration without stepping on a few toes and his success has made him a few enemies. Add to that an uncertain marriage, a liaison with the Internet psychic who played Miss Liberty in last year’s parade, and the startling revelation that he is not Norwegian (he is in fact nearly half Spanish).
So now what? Should he stay in Lake Wobegon and give his marriage and his life a chance, decamp to California with his lover Angelica Pflame, or is now the time to announce his intention to run for Congress? Should he stay where he is or Is this the time to declare his Liberty?