celebrating the 4th, then and now

       We rode our bikes across the width of Manhattan. America was turning 200 and we had just turned 30. We wanted to get to the Hudson River, to see the tall ships majestically moving up river, as part of the celebration of America’s birthday.

      It was a Sunday, July 4, 1976, and for weeks we had been imbued with the spirit of America’s bicentennial, reminded relentlessly of our mostly glorious history.

      CBS, back when people watched CBS, back when there weren’t so many choices to watch other things, had been running what it called the bicentennial minute for nearly two years in advance of this day. Sandwiched into commercial breaks, preceding and following network shows, there were 912 60-second educational segments broadcast nightly to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution.

      And yet it was surely an odd moment to celebrate and commemorate.

      Less than two years earlier, Richard Nixon had resigned from the presidency in what was then-considered disgrace. As a nation we had been through the trauma of Watergate and we had finally, only a year earlier and with our tail between our legs, ended the interminable trauma of the war in Vietnam that had riven our country so long.

      Still, many of us remember that date, that celebration, those tall ships, as being a moment of hope, a pretty festive moment, even a proud moment.

      We rode our bikes, back when we could still ride bikes, because the bicentennial mood was a welcome break from difficult years and gave us something positive to celebrate together. According to reports, houses flew American flags, towns restored historic buildings, schools held special programs and communities organized parades, concerts and pageants. Even in blasé New York, It wasn't unusual to see red, white and blue decorations everywhere for months. It wasn’t unusual to feel a sense of optimism that the country could actually recover from the turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

      A simpler time, sure, and a simpler word—“bicentennial”—than the current moment’s ungainly “semiquincentennial,” which seems a remarkably appropriate ugly word for an ungainly commemoration of America’s 250th birthday.  

      It’s a celebration, if you want to call it that, that has been co-opted by an authoritarian regime with absolutely no sense of disgrace, a government that has tried to transform a birthday party into a political rally. Instead of private homes flying American flags there’s an algae-filled pool surrounded by a pathetic pastiche of a state fair that has, not surprisingly, attracted few attendees. Instead of a patriotic outpouring, we have an admixture of an evangelical Christian fantasy, a glorification of autocratic hubris and one more step toward dividing us rather than bringing us together.

      A couple of hundred miles south of the algae, our little southern town will, as usual, host its own July 4th celebration. It’s generally a fun event, some good music, a water-balloon tossing contest, bounce houses for kids and so on. But to be honest, not sure we’ll be going, like we usually do, and not just because it’s likely to be a million degrees out there on the Town Commons.

      Given what has been happening in this country for the last year and a half, given what we stand for now, it seems a very odd moment to celebrate. It’s definitely not the same hopeful moment we felt way back in ’76.

      We were very different people then, of course, and not just because we could still ride bikes. More important, we’re a very different country now.