This web site does not usually display new content on Saturdays. Well, it's not being typed on a Saturday. This post was written on Friday, as some of our e-friends' commenters appeared to be gearing up to make the holiday weekend a source of bad memories, picking fights and spouting inflammatory comments.
Here are some ways this web site would like to encourage everyone in the US to have a glorious Fourth of July. This is not an exhaustive list but this web site has tried to make it exhaustingly long. This web site hopes that the kind of people who want to pick fights will feel tired just by reading all these words, flop down near a television set, and fall asleep.
1. Start the celebration by raising your main flag. This can be made into a ceremony if people want it to be.
2. Make and drink lots of the traditional Fourth of July beverage: lemonade. This is made by combining sugar, water, and lemons in any proportion that suits you. It will depend on the quality of your lemons. Tasting will be necessary.
(In days of yore, our Founding Fathers sometimes ran short of lemons for the Fourth of July and had to stretch their lemonade by adding other ingredients. Limes won't change the color. Orange, grapefruit, or rhubarb (which grew well in the Northeastern States) juice will yield PINK lemonade. Pink lemonade was marketed as a special treat. Also, honey, molasses, and maple syrup were sometimes used to eke out supplies of sugar.)
3. Who wants to heat up the house on the Fourth of July? All cooking moves outdoors. Barbecuing meat, grilling corn, roasting potatoes in the ashes, and toasting marshmallows over the coals, are traditional ways to discourage mosquitoes too. Insects love to invite themselves to a picnic but will un-invite themselves if they smell smoke.
4. Read the Declaration of Independence aloud. At home, it can be fun to let the youngest person who is willing to try it lead the reading. Everyone else reads in unison.
5. Sing "The Star-Spangled Banner," all the verses if possible, and as many other patriotic songs as possible.
6. If you have a town or neighborhood parade, or fireworks show, or other traditional festivity, go out and support it. Be neighborly.
7. In 1976, when I dressed up for a Bicentennial pageant, all most people knew about what people were wearing in 1776 was that the women wore long skirts and the men wore knee-length coats, knee-length breeches, and knee-high stockings. I remember at least knowing that my costume needed a sunbonnet and an apron for authenticity, while being blithely unaware that paisley print (the one maxi-dress I owned was red paisley) hadn't been invented in 1776 and the fashionable colors were pale, dull pastels, to which darker colors tended to fade in those days anyway. I had not heard an actual song from the 1770s that described how fashions in the new United States differed from those in France and England:
"Of economy boast! Let your pride be the most
To show clothes of your own weave and spinning.
No more ribbons wear, nor in rich silks appear.
Love your country much better than fine things."
Patriots rejected imported materials during the Revolutionary War years. If you don't have a white wig, sunbonnet, or pair of knee breeches, you can still dress in authentic Revolutionary War spirit.
8. For reenactments, know your options regarding "race." All thirteen colonies allowed slavery before, during, and for varying lengths of time after the War. Not all slaves were Black. Not all free citizens were White. Regardless of your ancestry or complexion you can reasonably claim the right to impersonate one of the slaves who were skilled artisans. Or you can reasonably claim the right to impersonate a free person. If you want to upset some people you can even impersonate a free citizen who owned slaves whose complexion was lighter than the owners'; that actually happened. "Race" became part of the slavery question in the early nineteenth century. In 1776 people who paid any attention to how other people looked could be blunt and rude about it because nobody thought it mattered much anyway, but people's "condition"--enslaved, apprenticed, employed by other people, in business for themselves, land owners, rich land owners, male or female, over or under age 21, part of the oldest active generation in their family or a subsequent generation--was a separate and much more important consideration. Social segregation followed lines drawn around money.
9. In 1776 many people thought special occasions should be solemn, observed with loooonnnnggg lectures if not actual sermons. Charles Carroll of Carrollton actually considered it a character defect that he had been known to laugh. The ideal facial expression was "grave," no more prone to smile than to cry or scowl. Declaring independence was considered a very solemn, even awful, event, not to be marked by frivolity. Few doubted that the Bible, as interpreted by their faith tradition, was literally true. Between 1776 and at least 1846 there are solid historical precedents for celebrating the Fourth of July with long, detailed sermons and Bible studies. To the extent that a backlash existed it was what Founders like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson called Deism. They never doubted that the world had been created by an Almighty God Who had given humankind specific instructions on how to serve their Maker. They merely questioned, seeing that people believed different things about what God wanted, how it was possible to know whether anyone was right. The idea of a separation of Church and State is something we owe to those Deists. There are historical precedents for keeping the Fourth of July a secular observance, too, thanks to them. But it's worth reading just what our founding Deists believed they ought to do. Franklin famously wrote that he at least wanted in "humility: [to] Emulate Jesus and Socrates."
10. Some people celebrate and reenact what their ancestors or town founders contributed to the United States after 1776. How not? They should try, however, to celebrate what their ancestors really wanted, which was not a global socialist dictatorship. Individual life, liberty, and the pursuit of wealth or some alternative source of happiness, are what the United States are all about. If you don't like those things, please consider moving to a country whose historic values are closer to yours. Others will be glad to replace you here.
11. The United States is not about an individual leader you might love or hate. It is about a system that recognizes that every leader can and will be replaced. For the duration of this holiday, at least, consider not mentioning the name of any living President.
12. There are historical precedents for celebrating the United States' prosperity with extravagant festivities, and for celebrating its frugal beginnings with frugal ones. For the benefit of perspective we probably need both. Consider celebrating early American life by unplugging and working on your self-sufficiency skills.
13. At least some family members should choose to stay inside and comfort dogs and cats who don't find the sound of fireworks entertaining. Animals who run away from what they believe is gunfire and bombing, in panic, are likely to get lost. Try to keep your four-footed friends in a safe, quiet room with any favorite toys, favorite cushions and blankets, and your snuggly reassuring self at their disposal.
14. If going to large family gatherings is not your favorite part of the holiday, consider acting on the assumption (which may or may not be true) that the stupid things some relatives say are the effects of jet lag, medication, and/or old age. Be charitable. Avoid arguments. Give politely cryptic answers to inappropriate questions while moving away into the crowd.
In some families political debates are part of the fun. Those families are not the people who need to avoid arguments. They know who they are. They can tell because they enjoy those debates.
15. Large family gatherings may work best in public or semi-public places that offer room for people to choose their own way to spend the afternoon. "Neurotypical" people can feel overloaded by travel, talk, food, and music too. Look for places where people can stroll down around the water when they've had enough conversation. Diversity and distance are American; they're what the "huddled masses" came here for.
16. Celebrating our natural environment is a patriotic thing to do, too. Why not visit scenic parks and waterfronts?
17. Try to drink only lemonade (or "fizzy lemonade"--soda pop) and spring water all day, if possible. And don't drive, anyway. You know some formerly human creature with booze for brains is going to be out on the road, looking for a family whose holiday can be made into a tragedy. Let somebody else smash him.
18. Liberate a shelter animal.
19. Celebrate our maritime history by spending the afternoon on a boat, or at least on a beach.
20. Make your own list of things you want to celebrate about being American: Ford cars, sarsaparilla, newspapers, football, stamp collecting, whooping cranes, Greyhound buses, redwood trees, junkyards,
blueberries, whatever. Any thing that can be celebrated, thereby distracting you from quarrelling with and about persons, is good.
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