by Freida Marie Crump
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Greetings from the Ridge.
On July 4, 1777, Philadelphia decided to celebrate. Just a year before, the Continental Congress had adopted the Declaration of Independence, and although we hadn’t really won it or received it, we claimed independence to be ours. At 8 a.m., 13 guns roared across the village green, prayers were said, what amounted to our army paraded around a bit, a few notables gave toasts, and an official dinner was given for our Congress. Their first pay raise was doled out in meat pies and ale. We had yet to win our first war, but already we were learning how to celebrate.
One year later in 1778, General George Washington gave his soldiers a double ration of rum and across the ocean in Paris, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin carried on the Congressional culinary tradition and held a dinner for their American friends.
Fireworks were exploded on the very first Independence Day and we’ve managed to hurl bombs bursting in air every year since from every Middlesex village and farm. Our annual July wham-bang is probably the only holiday on which we can all agree how to celebrate.
Perhaps the strangest Fourth of July I ever witnessed was in the land of the loser. We’d just watched what seemed like an endless production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Avon, England, and I had completely forgotten that it was Independence Day until I walked out onto the theatre’s concrete patio to be greeted by a single firework exploding over my head.
A group of students from the U.S. had decided to start a small-scale re-enactment of the original rebellion by shooting off fireworks in the heart of the redcoat territory. The British theatre goers stopped dead in their tracks, musing at how foreign terrorists at least had the decency to resort to colorful aerial displays overhead instead of blowing up subway stations. The handful of U.S. citizens cheered as someone began singing "My Country ‘Tis of Thee," while the Brit’s recognized the tune and chimed in with "God Bless our Gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen." It sounded a good deal like Presbyterians and Methodists stumbling over each other’s trespasses and debts in the Lord’s Prayer. The words were different but the sentiment was the same.
It’s our only holiday celebrating the United States. While most countries have a whole litany of days commemorating nationalism, we keep our powder dry for twelve months then blow it off in one glorious burst of July merriment and it’s a celebration relatively short on sentiment compared to Memorial Day. It would take a fairly long memory or a streak of looniness to claim a life-long friendship with any veterans of the Revolutionary War. The heroes of that war are mostly commemorated in concrete or Longfellow poems and there’s little chance of offending someone’s ancestry so long departed. The solemn marches to the cemetery have generally been replaced by gas-fired barbecue grills and copious amounts of firewater.
My Uncle Harris always mused that it would be more convenient to move the Fourth of July to November "when it wasn’t so damned hot."
(Harris was short on practicality but long on wit, being the same guy who after driving his car to California said, "If it took the Lord six days and nights to make heaven and earth, I won’t know why in the hell he didn’t take Thursday afternoon off and leave out Idaho.")
Celebrations in Coonridge fall into two general categories of "official" and "less than official." The volunteer fire department throws a dandy display of bangers, sizzlers, boomers, and sparklers into the darkened sky as we all appropriately Oooh and Ahh from our lawn chairs. Then we return home to spend the night awakened by the less formal fireworks displays that tend to scare cats and cause elderly men to loose control of their bladders after a long day of beer and iced tea. It’s all good, I suppose, and we survive it. Other than a few scorched spots on the town’s three streets and village full of cats still huddling under the porch, the town can smile with satisfaction at another Fourth of July duly and well celebrated.
There are worse things than knowing how to celebrate something, and as our concerns become more global and less parochial, it’s still good to cheer a bit for the home team. Considering where we’ve come in 232 years, I think it’s worth all the hoopla.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.