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Like many towns, Salida will celebrate an
old-fashioned Fourth of July
today. There will be a
parade down the main street, culminating at a park where a
band will play as people visit craft and food booths,
followed by fireworks after sundown.
That's not exactly old-fashioned,
though. When we
moved here in 1978, Salida didn't do anything for the
Fourth of July -- no parade, no band, no fireworks.
Salida's big festival was FIBArk in mid-June, and once the
long kayak race to Cotopaxi was over, that was it for
summer celebrations.
There were some Independence Day fireworks at the rodeo grounds in Poncha Springs, but it wasn't much of a show. If you wanted a big and gaudy fireworks display, you went to Leadville or Gunnison. And you suffered if you forgot to take sweaters and blankets, for evenings in those towns, even in July, are more than chilly.
So you could argue that an old-fashioned
celebration here would be none at all, depending on the
vintage of the fashion.
But if you go further back
and peruse the old newspapers, the traditional celebration
was much in evidence.
By day, boys terrorized everyone with an array of firecrackers, ranging from tiny ladyfingers to immense silver salutes. By night, they shot off rockets. Bigger boys detonated dynamite, then freely available, on the edge of town. Church and locomotive bells rang. A brass band led a parade of Union Army veterans to the park, where the mayor read the Declaration of Independence. Then there might be a baseball game with the local nine taking on a neighboring town.
Much of the old-fashioned
celebration of
Independence Day would be illegal today, and yet all over
America, we read of old-fashioned Fourth of July
or
traditional Independence Day
celebrations.
Why the focus on old times? Perhaps because it's pretty
hard to imagine a new-fangled Fourth of July
celebration.
What would it involve? A trip to the nearest regional
shopping mall to catch the Hot as a Firecracker
sale
on cheap imported goods at some big box? A drive to the
mountains, burning imported gasoline to celebrate American
independence? Sitting at home drinking beer, cooking
burgers and watching TV? Working two jobs, just like every
other day, because modern American enterprisedoesn't
believe in paid holidays and you can't afford to take time
off?
Perhaps the new-fangled Fourth
would be a virtual
festival, thereby allowing you to avoid mingling with your
fellow citizens.
You could turn on your home media center, then select a
way to celebrate. Even if the local National Guard unit is
actually in Iraq, virtual soldiers could march in the
simulated Independence Day parade. Or you could lob
simulated cherry bombs at a virtual house that isn't flying
the flag. Find a parked virtual Volvo with a faded No
blood for oil
bumper sticker, and cover that with a
I thank God every night that George W. Bush is my
president
bumper sticker.
None of those sounds especially promising, though. We seem to want to celebrate the Fourth as nostalgia, as a vestige of a small-town America that few modern Americans actually inhabit, rather than as an event with any contemporary relevance.
And that's probably just as well. Do we really want
modern people pondering a George who has erected a
Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of
Officers to harass our people, and eat out their
substance
?
Or thinking about all the ways that modern America has
of imposing Taxes upon us without our Consent
? Or
wondering whether there's any contemporary relevance to
When a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, evinces a
Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future Security
?
It's doubtless for the best, at least in terms of
homeland security,
that we consider the Declaration
of Independence a charming relic of the 18th century,
rather than a timeless challenge. And that may explain why
we haven't come up with a modern way to celebrate the
Fourth, and instead hold our old-fashioned
celebrations.
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