I count myself so lucky to have been born an America. Our country remains the envy of the world and a paradigm of freedom and democracy for all. But I feel like Benjamin Franklin who was asked while exiting the final session of the Constitutional Convention about what form of government we had created, he replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Can we keep it? I hope so, but we are facing an existential crisis. The upcoming mid-term election will be a test for American democracy. No trumped up emergency can keep us from voting and from having all votes fairly counted. These next five months will test us all, and we must not come up short.

If you are looking for a way to celebrate this 250th birthday of the USA and learning something about our history and struggles as a nation, let me recommend, 250 to 250, a series of 250 videos created by the historian Heather Cox Richardson. Each video is just about a minute in duration, but in that minute you learn something about important events and people in our history and culture. Enjoy!

And have a hot dog for me!