Oh beautiful, for spacious skies: What makes American beautiful in 2025

Put aside politics for a moment. Please.

Not because it's unimportant. It's important.

Not because you can't make a difference. Because you can.

Not because if you eliminate the P, the letters can be rearranged to spell "colitis." Because that's true.

But put politics aside because it's time to celebrate things that make America great (and I realize that using the terms "make" "America" and "great" makes some of us cringe. Put that aside for a moment, too).

Friday is July 4, the 249th birthday of the United States of America. That means America is older than the cotton gin, the telegraph, the internal combustion engine and Tik-Tok. But it also means America is younger than the steam engine, the printing press and Dick Van Dyke.

As we celebrate our collective birthday, there are some uniquely American things to celebrate. They don't rank with freedom of speech, representative democracy or the Statue of Liberty on the list of greatest American achievements, but here are 10 random things that are pretty cool and worth honoring:

Hot dog eating contests. Food-eating contests are held around the world, but nobody does it better than us. Joey Chestnut (from Vallejo!) is the Babe Ruth of this "sport," but even the previous biggest star (the "Home Run Baker" of the "sport?"), Takeru Kobayashi made his mark in America. O beautiful, for spacious pies.

Sports. Other nations have favorite sports (usually soccer), but here we love everything. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, tennis, mixed martial arts, pickleball, hot dog eating contests (see above). I'm grateful to live in a nation with a smorgasbord of great sports.

Hollywood. This may be America's greatest export – our pop culture, which originally was communicated to the world through movies. Hollywood quickly established itself as the center of the film world and retains that role more than a century after Douglas Fairbanks and John Barrymore were the biggest movie stars in the world.

Dollywood. I've never been to Dolly Parton's theme park and don't expect to visit, but the fact that we do theme parks big and we're brash enough to use clever wordplay to name them is another great thing about our country. I guess you could say "Bollywood" is what makes India great, but then I'd say they're just importing our great cultural treasure.

The interstate highway system. It's popular to criticize our roads ("The Roman roads still exist, but then engineers got involved . . ."), but the interstate highway system is remarkable. You can get on Interstate 80 and drive east all the way to Teaneck, New Jersey. You can take I-5 from the Canadian border to Mexico. When cars became the main mode of transportation in the mid-20th century, which country leaned in the hardest? Our interstate highway system was launched in 1956 and completed in 1992. My country, 'tis of thee.

Individualism. No nation emphasizes the individual more than the United States and while it's frequently to our detriment, it also encourages personal responsibility. Most of us believe working hard can get us ahead (even though we generally agree that everyone doesn't start at the same place). That's why our nation has led the way in innovation for centuries.

T-shirt cannons. I don't know if these weapons – designed to fire T-shirts into crowds at a sporting event – are specific to America, but they are common here. If you go to a sporting event and have bad seats, there's still a chance the mascot will fire a T-shirt to you. What a country!

Starbucks. Born in Seattle, exported to the rest of the country and to the rest of the world. It's hard to imagine a world without Starbucks and Starbucks is an American company. Is this my effort to get some free coffee from Starbucks' corporate offices? Maybe.

Friendliness and optimism. Even during dark times for our nation, people in other countries think of Americans as friendly (maybe too friendly?) and optimistic. What do you think of the people in your life who are friendly and optimistic? You like them, right? That's all of us to the rest of the world.

July 4 celebrations. Whether it's music at the Suisun City waterfront, the parade in downtown Fairfield or a (possibly illegal) fireworks show you attend, we love explosions and fireworks and danger to celebrate our nation's birthday. Sure, it's flawed. But we have T-shirt cannons, hot dog eating contests and Starbucks!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

School daze: Turns out most Americans have similar high school memories

Spoiler alert: Your high school experiences weren't unique.

Most of us think our high school experience was distinctive. More painful than others. More romantic. More successful. More traumatic.

Maybe it was, but it turns out that our experiences are pretty common.

Looking back to those three or four formative years, nearly all of us have some sort of romantic remembrance, a group of friends (maybe very small) with whom we identified, some sort of great classroom memory and some sort of bad classroom memory.

One theory why: From (roughly) age 14 through 18, almost all of us have some sort of crush on someone, some friends and take a bunch of classes. Logic indicates that those classes included some we liked and some we didn't.

Science backs me up. Well, if not science, a survey by YouGov (my favorite source for interesting data). According to their survey of more than 2,200 adults, more than three-fourths of us have high school memories of having a crush on or dating someone, having a group of friends, having a class we loved and having a class we hated.

In other words, common high school experiences.

Sorry to rain on your parade if part of your identity is telling people you weren't, "at the popular table" (which, by definition, fits an overwhelming majority of people. Because there is a narrow definition of "popular" for teenagers). Most of us weren't at the popular table.

I'm also sorry if, like Uncle Rico on "Napoleon Dynamite," you had your hopes dashed in high school by a coach or teacher who didn't give you the chance you thought you deserved. Most of us had that.

Sorry if you think your high school romance was especially dramatic or tragic. Maybe it was, but it's probably similar to many other people's.

Turns out high school has other common experiences.

If you lied to your parents, you're not alone: 67% of respondents did and the other 33% also did, but are liars who now lie to survey-takers.

Interestingly, some gender stereotypes are affirmed by the study. Men are far more likely to have gotten into trouble in school, including for fighting, while women are far more likely to have made the honor roll, but experienced anxiety or depression.

There's a generation gap on a few issues, too. Far more young people had cellphones in high school, while older people were more likely to have a driver's license  (because we had to physically drive to someone's house to talk to them without our family members listening in to our calls on the landline).

What's the lesson here? I guess it's that as awful or great as you think high school was, you're not alone. At least in our perception, most of us have had similar good and bad memories from that time.

As we get older, most of us tend to go to one end of the continuum when remembering high school. It was either the greatest time of our lives, filled with friends and parties and football games and academics or it was the worst time, filled with loneliness and being excluded and not sitting at the cool kids' table (which we all insist we wouldn't want to do anyway).

The most clear-thinking of us realize there's no way we'd want to be 15 or 16 or 17 again. We wouldn't again want to wonder what it would take to be cool, while noticing that our hair was terrible, struggling over having acne and wishing we were more athletic or smarter or more talented.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

'Ask Dad' returns to provide Father's Day advice

It's a Father's Day tradition as old as playing the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament, not knowing what gift to get your father and dads being asked, "Why isn't there a Kids' Day?" and answering, "Every day is Kids' Day!"

It's the annual "Ask Dad" column in this space, where an artificial father answers questions from alleged readers.

It's Dan Landers, not Ann Landers. It's Mr. Manners, not Ms. Manners. It's po-tay-toe, not po-tah-toe.

On to the mailbag:

Dear Dad:

My sister and I were close while growing up, but since becoming adults, our relationship has been strained. I've tried to reach out to her, but she doesn't seem interested in spending time with me or my family. I even had my 16-year-old son go to her house to mow her lawn as a favor. She was insulted, thinking that I was saying her lawn was unkempt. What should I do?

Frustrated in Fairfield

Dear Frustrated:

Relationships can be complicated, but I commend you for sending your son over to mow her lawn. That's a good job for a teenager. Hopefully, he realizes the value of mowing in a circular motion, with the grass being blown to the middle. When you do that, each lap results in the cut grass moving toward the middle and makes it easier to rake when you're done. Of course, if you have a bag on your mower, it doesn't matter, but in my day, we had to mow and then rake.

I hope this helped.

Dear Dad:

My 6-year-old son just started playing youth baseball and his coach is much harsher than his father and I are. I'm concerned that the coach will ruin my son's confidence. How can I approach the coach to suggest that he goes a little lighter on my son without seeming like an overprotective mom?

Vaca Baseball Mom

Dear VBM:

As everybody knows, baseball is a game of failure: Even the greatest hitters fail seven out of 10 times. It's important to learn how to handle failure, particularly if you're new to it. Although I guess not every great hitter fails seven out of 10 times. Ted Williams hit .400 in 1941 and Tony Gwynn had a career .338 average, which meant he failed 6.62 times out of 10. Gwynn was a master of hitting and my guess is that if he were playing now, he'd still be a .320 hitter, but with more power. I suspect that even the analytics guys who run baseball now would admit that he would be a great hitter in any era.

I hope this helped.

Dear Dad:

I am 50 and work in an office where there are a lot of people in their 20s. I love their youthful energy, but it drives me crazy that they spend all their time looking at their phones. Sometimes I'll be talking to one of them, they'll get a notification on their phone or watch and will just stop listening to me. They instead stare at their device. What's the best way to handle that situation without sounding like an old man shouting at the clouds?

Confused in Suisun City 

Dear Confused: 

Changes in technology always have good and bad outcomes – and young people (or old people) staring at their phones is one of those. This has always been the case. Remember when drive-in movies began piping the audio to your radio instead of those speakers that clipped onto your window? That seemed confusing and it took away part of the fun of going to drive-ins. I remember one time when I was in high school, I went to an old-time drive-in with two of my friends, Scott and Oscar. When the movie was over, Scott drove off with the speaker still attached to his car. WHAP! It sounded like he'd had a blowout, but it was just the speaker popping off his window and slamming into its pole. Oscar and I laughed about that forever. We still talk about it.

I hope this helped.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Noon, midnight and the mistaken ways people describe them

I realized it was an obsession when my son texted me, asking me to confirm his thoughts: "12 p.m. Central is 10 a.m. here, right?" he wrote.

It was for a work meeting. His company's headquarters are in Minneapolis, so everything runs on Central time. He just wanted to be sure he was on time.

But that's not what I read. Or it wasn't all I read.

"Yes," I wrote back. "Although I hate it when people say 12 p.m. It's NOON, because p.m. means AFTER noon. But yes, you are correct."

I presume he rolled his eyes. Or was confused. Or didn't read past the first word. He'd struck the strangest pet peeve nerve in his weird dad's world.

I have myriad language rules that I expect people to follow when writing (and even speaking). I don't condemn you for using them, but I quietly edit you in my brain.

For instance:

• You don't end a sentence with a preposition (leading to Mrs. Brad and me saying such things to each other as, "I wonder to whom this belongs?").
• You don't say "of" before the word "myriad." (There are myriad reasons for that. I can't think of any, but I remember learning this and now I insist on it. Check the paragraph above for the correct style.)
• You don't put an "s" on the end of forward or backward. Unless you're British, of course. Otherwise, it's a big step backward. No "s."

But mostly, there is no such thing as 12 p.m. or 12 a.m., despite the work of virtually every person who makes a flier (hey! Another one. A sheet of paper advertising something is a flier, not a flyer). This is the rule where I draw the line, personally and professionally.

In my job, I occasionally edit items that include times. Nothing causes me to roll my eyes more than when an event starts or ends at 12 p.m. ("Which is that?" I'll ask whoever is nearby in mock confusion. "Is it midnight? Is it noon? Because there's no such thing as 12 p.m.!")

The midnight/noon reasoning is simple.

The acronym "p.m." means post meridiem, a Latin phrase for midday. In other words, p.m. is any time after midday, which is noon. Since noon is not after noon (it is noon!), it's not p.m. It's not a.m. It's noon.

The reverse is true for a.m., which means ante meridiem, Latin for before midday. Before noon. So midnight isn't 12 p.m. or 12 a.m. It's midnight.

If you think I'm crazy about this, I'm not! Wikipedia's entry on a.m. and p.m. includes a full section on the confusion that happens when people want to write 12 p.m. or 12 a.m. and attempted solutions, but it highlights that most style guides suggest the obvious: Use noon and midnight.

(Note: Citing Wikipedia to support my argument makes me nervous. Wikipedia has a 1,025-word entry on toilet paper orientation and a 392-word entry on the idea of a "toast sandwich"–toast between two slices of bread. However, I'll take support where I can get it.)

I stand on the truth. My son may think I'm losing it. My workmates think I obsess over it. Mrs. Brad may have heard my explanation dozens of times and the entire world may know what someone means when they write "12 p.m."

I don't know what they mean.

Gary Cooper and Eric Clapton would agree with me. The movie was "High Noon," not "High 12 p.m." and the song was "After Midnight," not "After 12 a.m."

It's simple. Say noon and midnight and we all understand.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The true history of my nickname (that I gave myself)

A basic rule of nicknames is that you can't give one to yourself.

Except for Kobe Bryant (who named himself "Black Mamba" and it stuck – after people mocked him for it for several years), no one gives themselves a nickname. Frank Sinatra didn't name himself "Chairman of the Board." Muhammad Ali didn't name himself "The Greatest." Beyoncé didn't name herself "Queen Bey." Heck, Alexander III of Macedon didn't name himself "Alexander the Great" and Walt Williams didn't name himself "No Neck."

However, I broke the rule.

I gave myself a nickname at age 10 and it stuck for decades. Some people still call me Otis, the nickname fifth-grade Brad gave himself.

As a teenager, most of my friends called me Otis. My stepmother – not known for her light-heartedness – sometimes called me Otis. My next-oldest sister would often call me Otis. At one of my jobs, I went by Otis. The Volkswagen Rabbit that I drove throughout college had a personalized license plate: Otiscar.

I was Otis.

It's a dumb story. In fifth grade, my best friend Troy and I decided that we needed nicknames. I don't remember Troy's (Marvin? Skeeter?), because it didn't stick.

Mine did. I picked mine because I admired Otis Sistrunk, the Oakland Raiders' defensive lineman of that era. Sistrunk had a shaved head when it wasn't common. He didn't play college football and said he came from the University of Mars. He seemed funny.

I didn't like the Raiders, but Otis Sistrunk was cool. His name was cool and so were other Otises (Oti?) in sports: Chiefs wide receiver Otis Taylor. NFL running back Ottis Anderson. NBA guard Otis Birdsong. Additionally, all were black, which made it more enticing to a white suburban kid who already had picked out his Muslim name, since it seemed like a thing in the mid-1970s (I would be Ahmad Abdul-Aziz).

Otis stuck. By late middle school, my friends would explain it to people we met ("Wait. What's his name?"), who then called me Otis. The naming ebbed and flowed. I was Brad when I started college.

But when I started working at Red Baron Pizza at age 18, there was already a Brad there. Too confusing. "You can call me Otis," I told the manager. For five years – all the way through college – I went by Otis. More and more people called me Otis.

Mrs. Brad and I started dating during that time and she never called me Otis. In fact, she used to mock my personalized license plate by insisting my plates said, "Oti Scar."

Hah hah hah.

At age 20, I was Otis, but over time, the nickname faded. When I started working at newspapers – first in my hometown of Eureka, then in Fairfield – I went by Brad. I moved away from everyone who knew that was my nickname.

I wasn't ashamed of the nickname (I would tell people the story if it came up for some reason), but I was now just Brad. I've been Brad for decades, except to some longtime friends. Some of my oldest friends: Guys like Kenny and Dwayne and Matt – still refer to me as Otis. 

The other day, Mrs. Brad and I were talking about nicknames and she asked how I came to be called Otis.

I told her: I gave it to myself, after Otis Sistrunk.

"You can't do that," she said. "Nicknames are given by other people."

She's right: That's true for most people.

Just not for the Black Mamba and Otis.

Reach Brad "Otis" Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.