Independence Day

“The new police cruisers, the new crosswalks, the trimmed tree branches, the buried electric, the refurbished band shell, the plans for the 4th of July parade—do what they civically can to ease our minds off worrying, convince us our worries aren’t worries, or at least not ours alone but everyone’s.”

Frank speaks here of the way the government spends money to make things appear fine. They do so to imply that there is no cause for worry, no matter how ominous the signs of economic recession might be. This reveals the role politics played in shaping perceptions of the U.S. economy in the 1980s.

“To anyone reasonable, my life will seem more or less normal-under-the-microscope, full of contingencies and incongruities none of us escapes and which do little harm in an existence that otherwise goes unnoticed.”

Frank sees his life as ordinary. To him, he is essentially a nameless face in the crowd. The tone here calls to mind Thoreau’s “lives of quiet desperation” and suggests an internal struggle to make his life matter.

“His poor brother, Ralph, who died of Reye’s, should also be alive (as he surely should) and we should all still be we.”

Frank is speaking of his son Paul here, but he projects his own views onto Paul. The passage underscores the trauma that both Frank and Paul have experienced and continue to struggle with overcoming. Reye’s syndrome is a rare but serious condition that tends to afflict children, causing liver damage and swelling in the brain.