250th Birthday

[Murfreesboro]

Is anyone making special plans for the 4th of July this year? I've bought some home decor, but otherwise will probably be low key. However, I am thinking back to the Bicentennial fifty years ago. I can hardly believe it's been half a century since that time, and I'm wondering if the festivities this year will be anything like as big.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I was thinking about this earlier this year, but was going to mention it when we got closer to the anniversary. As you know, Phoebe's birthday is on the 5th and we usually have a American themed party for her, though last year we were on the cruise so we didn't do that, but she has already told us that she wants to have her party at the diner this year, but I know it's going to be almost impossible to top the party she had last year.

I just thought of this while sitting here, but I think the diner is the perfect place to celebrate the anniversary as well because it's a snapshot of a beautiful time in our country's history, so I'm going to be decorating the diner that week for the celebration.

You mentioned the Bicentennial 50 years ago, I'd like to hear any memories of the celebrations that you recall from back then. Andy was 9 at the time, but I wasn't born yet. I know that my older sister was almost a year old, but I'll ask my mother about her experience, and a few other people as well since I'm interested in the topic again.

As for the festivities this year, with the current state of the country, and the ignorance of the younger generation, among other factors, I doubt that the celebration will be as big as it deserves to be, though I'm sure that there will definitely be some traditionalists that will make it a anniversary to remember.

[Murfreesboro]

I think the diner will be a superb venue for Phoebe's party. As you say, it's really a slice of Americana.

I may have jumped the gun by bringing up the 4th, but I've already spent some $$s on decorations, so it was on my mind.

The Bicentennial came at an odd time. The country was pretty dispirited. Nixon had resigned in disgrace, and his elected VP, Spiro Agnew, had resigned ahead of him. So Gerald Ford, Nixon's appointed VP, was our president, and he hadn't been elected by anybody. People kind of wondered if there was going to be any excitement about the 4th at all, at least, I did. But then when the day came, it was an amazing nation wide celebration. It was almost as if people were so ready to celebrate something.

The tv stayed on various celebrations all day long, preempting regular programming. I was writing my master's thesis, which was due in August, so I had it on in the background. I recall there were tall sailing ships in Boston harbor. I remember seeing women in colonial dress in some kind of sewing circle, maybe quilting or something. Things were going on everywhere, in every corner of the country. I was in Nashville, and that evening a friend and I went to Centennial Park, about a block and a half from my apartment, and watched the fireworks. They were the biggest fireworks I'd ever seen, and they were bursting right over our heads. The whole sky was filled with them.

As I may have said elsewhere, the South had not been big on celebrating the 4th in my childhood. In my home state of Mississippi, nobody had celebrated it until the middle of WW2, since Vicksburg had fallen on the 4th during the Civil War. People were more likely to shoot off fireworks at Christmas than the 4th of July. But I think the Bicentennial changed that. Beginning in the mid 70s, every small Southern town started to do big fireworks displays on the 4th. I think that happened because everybody had enjoyed the Bicentennial so much.

There were all sorts of ancillary things leading up to it. The US mint issued special bicentennial quarters, which I sometimes see in circulation even now. TV. networks had "Bicentennial Minutes," where they would give little facts about the revolutionary period. And one magazine chased down as many descendants of the founders as they could find. I recall they found a tall, redheaded young man who was a direct descendant of Jefferson, and a lawyer in Massachusetts who was a direct descendant of Adams. He stood beside a bust of John Adams in his law office, and looked so much like that bust that it was spooky. One of the funniest was a Chinese woman who was a direct descendant of Franklin. Apparently his grandson or great-grandson had been a sea captain and had married a Chinese woman.

I also recall reading an essay about our national anthem in Newsweek magazine. The anthem had been under attack during the Vietnam era because it was so martial. Many people wanted it replaced by America the Beautiful. This writer was defending the Star Spangled Banner. I never forgot her remark that ours is the only national anthem on earth that ends with a question mark--" Oh, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave/ o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" She said it was the question that every generation of Americans needs to ask themselves.

[Murfreesboro]

Another thing I recall about the Bicentennial is that, when I moved to Nashville for grad school in fall '75, they played the national anthem.in the movie theaters before every movie, and the whole audience would pop up and stand for the anthem. Having just come from Mississippi, that seemed funny to me. I thought it was something they did all the time in Nashville. But I think it was just a Bicentennial thing up here.