July is a fine time to be thinking about the “pursuit of happiness.”

It’s an exceedingly strange phrase to find at the beginning of a political manifesto, but there it is, in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“Self-evidence,” a philosophical concept that was sexy in the late 18th century, may have long fallen out of fashion; and we may find ourselves dumbfounded by the irony in the phrase, “all men are created equal,” in light of the fact that the main author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, was himself a lifelong slave-owner.

Even so, you have to love the way those humble words, “pursuit of happiness,” ring out like a trumpet blast. What a wonderful right to consider “unalienable!” And how lucky we are to live in a country which holds the quest for happiness as one of the three fundamental rights of existence.

We’re now in the third century of debate about what that happiness entails, but here’s what it looked liked for us, over the Fourth of July weekend, up at the Creek.

As many of you know, the rainy spring produced an incredible abundance of wild black raspberries. The weekend of the Fourth, with its unseasonably cool and dry weather, was perfect for berry picking and for the marathon of jam-making which inevitably follows.

Picking wild black raspberries is hard work, fraught with thorns, ticks, and poison ivy. Which is why I was so thrilled that my wife volunteered to do it. She picked and picked. And picked and picked. With a little help from our daughter, but not much, since our little angel gobbled up pretty much every berry she found.

And no, while the Ladies were fighting and scratching their way across the property, I wasn’t sitting out on the porch with a cool drink and a crossword puzzle. Well, maybe I was, but not at that particular moment. No, I was out in the pole barn, manning the table saw, putting the finishing touches on the old cider press I wrote about a few columns ago.

The morning of the Fourth, we loaded up on apples from Butcher’s Farm Market in Newport. The first apples of the year, a variety called “Lodi,” were in. These are pretty tart. We balanced those off with a bushel of last year’s Golden Delicious apples.

These were all local apples. We wanted nothing else for our inaugural cider!

We fired up the cider press (did I mention that I’d motorized it?) and our daughter fed in the first victims, a few big green Lodis. The cast-iron jaws of the press promptly reduced the Lodis to mush. At which point we moved the wad of crushed apples, or “pomace,” over to the acme screw part of the press and proceeded to squeeze the daylights out of it.

Juice flowed. Samples were taken in a completely unscientific fashion. Followed by more samples. The Lodi juice was certainly pucker-worthy; the Golden Delicious juice was sweet and slightly insipid. Together, they made for a harmonious blend indeed.

That evening, we grilled, made a big salad from the greens in our garden, and set off fireworks. We toasted the country’s birthday with our fresh apple cider. Followed by a glass of wine and a double chocolate Klondike bar, for good measure.

Gardening. Woodworking. Cider-making. Cooking. Preserving. Reading. Obsessively checking the Web for the results of the Wimbledon men’s final. Walking the basset hound. Visiting with neighbors. Celebrating. Mowing. Listening to the radio. Keeping an eye out for groundhogs. Running like crazy from lit fireworks. Watching our friend the green heron poke around the little pond. Checking each other for ticks.

In other words, perfection.

John Adams, who played such a prominent role in getting the Declaration of Independence approved, had this to say in a letter to his wife Abigail, dated 3 July, 1776:

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

To which I say, “Amen.”

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 16 July 2009

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com