I didn’t mind so much when Fritz didn’t remember what Independence Day was all about. It has been a year since the last Fourth of July.

I didn’t mind so much when my explanation of it being the day the founders of our nation read the Declaration of Independence to the masses drew a blank stare.

I didn’t mind so much that the name Thomas Jefferson failed to stir his soul and once again drew a blank stare. That biography we read together about him was read at the beginning of the school year last year. That was a long time ago, I suppose.

But when my litany of names, places, and events – Revolutionary War, Boston Tea Party, “One if by land, two if by sea,” “The British are coming! The British are coming,” George Washington, the crossing of the Delaware river, the founding of of nation, Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin – continued to elicit glazed eyes and not a shred of evidence that a single brain cell was functioning, I became a bit annoyed.

Oh, that’s right, I sarcastically thought to myself, it’s summer. Schooltime is for knowledge and summertime is for killing as many of those little gray cells as possible so mom’s job is that much harder in September.

So, I pulled from my shelves a small book on Thomas Jefferson that we didn’t read last year. It has only 64 pages and lots of pictures.

We will have no fun today until we have read this book and thanked God for the giants upon whose shoulders we now stand, by golly.