Remembering the freedoms we sometimes forget through telling the stories freedom makes possible

When I was a kid, the significance of the July 4 holiday was lost on me. I just knew it meant we got to blow stuff up.

Of course, I knew the reason for the holiday. I’d been taught about 1776, the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers. But if I’m being honest, those things felt far from my world. What was real was sparklers, bottle rockets, smoke bombs, those weird growing snake thin…