For what it might be worth, I offer this...

"For 14 percent of U.S. teens, the Fourth of July will mark the historic day we declared independence from France.

Another 5 percent think we rose up against the tyrannous Canadians on July 4, 1776.

That's according to a new study, which finds a sizable percentage of high school-age Americans don't really know what all the fuss is about today. More than a fifth of the survey respondents didn't know which country we declared our independence from, including 14 percent who thought it was France, not Britain.

The survey reported that 15 percent of U.S. teens didn't know the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. Nine percent thought we ratified the Constitution that day. (That didn't happen for another 13 years.)"

Poll: Many Teens Don't Know July 4 History - ABC News

I do not think it is a huge deal, although it is a bit disconcerting to me but what bothers me is that they cannot possibly understand the thought and the principles that went into the document we celebrate today (most of us know it was not signed on July 4) and what that freedom meant to those folks.

Growing up with the constraints of World War 2, my parents insured that on this day, we were made aware of what we were fighting for. There was gas rationing and basically no tires to buy if you had a car so you did not go on an outing in the sense we know today.

I think we all have read or heard the words of John Adams as he spoke in support of signing this declaration and my Dad read them to me...i studied them in school and in college and they still ring true to me....

"If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood, but it will stand and it will richly compensate for both.

Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations."