When I was 19, I knew a much older man who'd grown up in 1930s Alabama.

"We didn't celebrate the Fourth of July," he told me. "For us, it was the day Vicksburg fell."

Vicksburg, Mississippi, fell to Union troops on July 4, 1863. The Confederates surrendered, as was their habit. Long memories still mourn the Lost Cause of Black backs whipped bloody.

So how am I, a resident of Rhode Island, supposed to celebrate the Fourth of July this year?

When I was maybe 8 years old, fireworks were illegal in Massachusetts, but my father, a bartender who invariably "knew a guy," brought home a box of sparklers for me.

The sparkler is the lowest form of firework. It doesn't blow up, it doesn't make a loud noise and it doesn't go up in the air. It's a long wire, the top half of which is coated with some sort of chemical mix that throws off showers of silver sparks when it's lit. You hold the sparkler by the uncoated bottom half. Those kids who hold the sparkler by the burning top half don't do it for long.

I would use the sparklers on the top step of the three steps that went down from the kitchen door of our rented house in Taunton, Massachusetts, under the supervision of my father.

I remember the metallic brightness of the sparks against the dark sky, and my father's deep voice.

"Be careful," he'd say. "Don't hold it too close to you."

I've always held things too close, and that's true of both my memories and America.

I don't hate America. I love America. What I hate is our gradual weakening, our string of lost or inconclusive wars, our blustering, Jesus-pimping leadership. We crow endlessly about this being "the greatest country in the world," but the highway bridges are rotting, we don't have enough technical skill to reline a pool and we're pushing hard to regain the use of every vile term we've ever used to describe nonwhites and women.

"If you don't like it here, why don't you move to Iran?" I'm asked.

I can't. I can't go anywhere else. My ethnic heritage is so jumbled that I can only call this country my own because America is where they made a new people from French and Irish and Scottish and English, which is what I am "by blood" if you think blood sings in different languages.

Maybe 2 miles from our house, my uncle Kendall's name is engraved on the town honor roll. He served in World War II and the Korean War. The honor roll is granite, and it's dead. Kendall is dead. When he came back from his wars, he pumped gas for the rest of working life.

I've touched his name where it's cut into the stone.

It's not as though there are no Fourth of July celebrations taking place near me, either. The worse the country gets, the bigger and tackier the patriotic celebrations get. If we fight a draw with Iran, next Fourth of July, there will be a pro wrestling show at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The flags keep getting bigger, too. In my neighborhood, there are people flying flags bigger than the one they fly outside the post office.

Rhode Island opted out of the Great American State Fair, as did most of the American population. Not even a speech from our rapidly failing president could save that disaster.

My wife Deborah was in charge of our yard decorations for the Fourth of July. She put out a flowered flag with a peace sign in the middle. It's a small flag, close to the ground, and it flutters from a small iron stake driven into the lawn. It probably stands 2 feet high, and on either side, there are small American flags on skinny sticks.

It's a modest display, is what it is, a little splash of peace and patriotism next to the rhododendron bush.

I'm already starting to feel protective of the little display. I don't want it to feel bullied by the big flags that have their own tall poles.

That's all the celebrating and decorating we'll do because America is too sad this year, and the future is too frightening.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.

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