I'm self-sufficient, and often (well...sometimes) independent. And yes, I've even painted a few fences in my day...scalloped, straight edged, dog-eared, flat top, French Gothic, wrought iron, and even the simpler traditional white picket variety.

In the event that you've never had the thrill of doing so yourself, it goes something like this -- in the blazing sun you stand at one end with a bucket of paint in one hand and a brush in the other, sighing, dipping your brush in the paint, sighing some more, dripping paint here and there, swiping the paint-filled brush up and down said fence, wiping the sweat from your brow, only to repeat this over and over, again and again, interminably from one boring end to the other -- wishing you were anywhere else, doing anything else.

Independent thinking is a rarity these days, but it's a bare necessity when hoping to see and act clearly. And clearly the independent and fast-thinking Tom Sawyer, the smart-aleck kid whose adventures were brought to life in the book by Mark Twain, made whitewashing his fence look like such a blast that he was able to dupe all his friends into doing the tedious job for him while he kicked-back, soaked in the sun and simply watched -- thereby delegating and declaring his independence from fence painting.

Independence Day, also known as The 4th of July, commemorates the 1776 event when our nation's founding fathers signed The Declaration of Independence -- a watershed of clarity in the history of democracy. So what better way to celebrate our nation's birthday than by pulling out all the stops with parades, patriotic displays, picnics, pyrotechnics and just about anything red, white and/or blue...including paint for fences.

Unless you have spent the last month in complete isolation, you know the dark underbelly of industrial agriculture has once again rolled to the surface. Every hamburger is a scary roll of the health dice, this time because of tainted tomatoes.

Why are we not surprised?

Fortunately, raising your own tomatoes is a lot easier than raising your own beef cattle. In fact, tomatoes are among the very easiest vegetables to grow.

Picnic-ready heirloom tomatoes; the green ones are ripe Aunt Ruby's German Green.

Tomatoes are not only easy, they're productive -- 6 or 8 plants (in the front yard, if need be) can supply all the fresh tomatoes a family of 4 could want, with enough extra to preserve for winter. And if your garden is the container kind, a single Sungold or Sweet Million in a half whiskey barrel will give you what does seem like a million delicious cherry tomatoes.

Although planting time is fast passing, it's not too late to get growing your own in most parts of the country. Garden centers still have seedlings and tomatoes are such tough plants that even skinny pot bound disasters will usually do fine, eventually.

From years of gentle rolling waves, the waters of Lake Michigan deposited piles of powder-white sun-bleached sand into monolithic climbable dunes. Along with the sound of the water, it's slathered sunbathers, bristly tall beach grass, tangles of driftwood being tossed back and forth and small clams leaving trails of bubbles through the sand as the water retreated from the roll of the latest wave - being so near to one of the Great Lakes was like having an ocean nearby.

As kids at the beach, we would walk its length until we sensed it would be an equally long walk back, and while doing so collected stones and shells that had been transformed by the constant unnoticeable grind of the sand and water. And as the day would dwindle away and as our heads, forearms and shoulders would become pink from a day at the shore, the citrus glow of the sun would move to a place behind the dunes and we would collect our stuff, load up our car, and head home.

The beach around Lake Michigan was nearby and our family would begin our day there with my dad making pancakes in the campgrounds' barbecue pits. In a metal bowl, the eggs, milk and instant batter from a box would be fluffed with a large spoon while the coals of the fire would be nursed to a glowing red-hot perfection. The appearance of his large blackened cast iron pan would mean that in a minute, the butter would be hot enough and we'd hear the much-anticipated sizzle and crackle of almost burned pancakes, which he quickly plated up for the next hungry mouth.

To some, my dad, Floyd, might have been a dismissible man -- quiet, soft spoken and shy. But to each of his three kids he was the world. Each winter he turned our driveway into an ice-rink, in the spring he'd bring us all fishing, during the school year he quietly sat through our torturous music lessons and every fall he painfully but proudly sat though our concerts. While shuttling us from point to point, he quietly watched, listened and guided. And although he worked the midnight shifts at the steel mill, had only a grade school education, and spoke English as his second language, he did so many wonderful things that I've only come to appreciate as an adult -- including teaching me how to clean that heavy cast iron skillet at the beach.