Here it is July 4th, and America is once again celebrating its birthday by blowing shit up and cooking out. As the heat crawls toward 102 degrees, my neighbors have already begun their drunken buffoonery combined with explosives and a lack of common sense. Perhaps today the Darwin award will be handed out on my street but I somehow doubt it.

Because it is the Fourth of July, I thought I’d post a semi patriotic image. Below is the July 1942 cover of “Sports Afield”, illustrated by Walter Haskell Hinton. This is one of a series of patriotic covers he illustrated furring the 1940’s. In this image he has juxtaposed a hunter with an 18th century War of Independence American soldier in buckskin. In the background Hinton has included the “V” for victory symbol enhancing the overall patriotic theme. The combination of the hunter and soldier suggests that the hunters’ marksmanship was as important skill for national defense in 1942 as it was in 1776, and that the right to bear arms continued to be an essential part of American patriotism.