Happy 250th Birthday America

I was in third grade when our Bicentennial came along.  It was quite a show.  Half of our year starting January was taken up in a vast, lavish production our school put on.  Each grade did something different.  Our third grade did a combination skit of settlers traveling into the West (including what had to be a guffaw inducing attempt at the Virginia Reel) with a nod toward the 1812 era as well.  My best friend was Uncle Sam. I was the narrator.  We saw videos, read books, and it seemed the Spirit of 76 was everywhere.  It wasn't so much by the time I entered 4th Grade later that year.  In fact, I remember little about the Bicentennial being dwelt upon by then.  I suppose July 4th had come and gone and that was that.

That was a different time of course.  I hear there were divisions then, as I'm sure there were.  I do recall some talk about America's best days being behind us.  But that's about all.  Otherwise, when it was mentioned in my earshot, it seemed to be talked about rather enthusiastically.  And though that was the first time I remember learning about things like Indian Wars and slavery, the overall package was one of positive praise and thankfulness for our country and those who came before: 

The president on the dollar

That Yankee Doodle dollar

The president on the dollar

George Washington's his name

I still remember that song we sang at the time.  And it was just one of many.  Again, by then we were being given a kiddy portion of 'they weren't all saints and angels'.  But the overall focus was on the good. At least from a kid's perspective.  A focus that, at least officially, remained until well into my college days. 

Looking back at the pop culture output through my adults eyes, however, I'm amazed at how counterculture such an upbeat and patriotic celebration really was.  Certainly most things we were celebrating were, by then, held up to derision or mockery by our emerging post-Western social standards, if they were mentioned at all.  As Mark Shea once said, back then if you wanted to know who the patriots were in popular entertainment, well there was Archie Bunker.  He was a patriot.  Frank Burnes on the TV show MASH was a patriot.  

Other ideals like honor, duty, loyalty were as often as not punchlines, not life principles.  People wrapping themselves up in the flag and singing God Bless America must have been seen as freaks or losers or, well, how our popular media culture and progressive society today see those who want to make America great again.

Back then, however, I have a feeling there was still the benefit of a majority witness for those who wanted the bands and bunting and Kate Smith renditions of patriotic songs.  We weren't quite finished yet, and the arrival of Ronald Reagan in 1980 would make patriotism cool again.  It would also force a shift in the Left's anti-patriotism to a new manifestation of patriotism. That is, you declare your patriotic love of America, but insist that love is only valid when you focus on the evils and failures and horrors of its past and present. It's still patriotism, just patriotism done right.

Nonetheless, in 1976, to my third grade mind in a small Midwestern farming town, patriotism wasn't that bad.  And not only because the big celebrations got us out of the usual school doldrums.  Not that it wasn't lost on us. But I remember feeling genuinely good about being in America.  And even today, after everything for so many decades, and so many attempts to get me to think otherwise, somehow I'm able to feel good about it again.  So raise a cold one, thank - not curse, thank - those who came before who made this possible, and say happy birthday #250 USA.  I still think it's not a bad way to spend a fourth. 

Did I mention the Spirit of 76 seemed to be everywhere?