We can still come together on the Fourth of July

The recent Sesquicentennial celebrations for West Virginia Day got me thinking about another “centennial” celebration I lived through…the nation’s bicentennial.

I was a student at Cross Lanes Elementary rising from the third to the fourth grade. I remember going out on the playground (just before school let out for the summer) to have a big program since we wouldn’t be in school for the Fourth of July. That year, 1976, was filled with year-long celebrations and memorials about the Founding Fathers.

At nine-years-old, I didn’t realize the historical significance and context of the year. Think about it: Saigon fell a little more than a year before in April 1975. Gerald Ford was president, after becoming Vice President following Agnew’s resignation and then President following Nixon’s. The country was ending a long period of tumult and turmoil that included protests and riots. And we all thought disco music was great.

For my recently completed West Virginia Voices of War documentary and the book Common Valor, 10 of the 46 war veterans I interviewed served in Vietnam. While many of them were still frustrated with how that war turned out, all of them said they were proud to have served their country.

Flash forward 37 years and tomorrow is another Fourth of July celebration. There is discontent and frustration here, but to me it doesn’t seem to be as bad as it was for the Bicentennial. We are ending two wars, and there is social and political unrest. We are slowly coming out of a recession.

The one thing it all teaches me is that as a country, while we may face challenges and there are problems, most of them are First World problems. The country as a whole is strong. And we are still free. There are regular challenges to our rights, but that has been going on for a long time and will continue to happen. That is the joyous part of living in a free democracy. We get to dissent. And disagree and even call each other names from time to time. But then we all end up standing out on the street at night in the middle of the summer to Oooooh and Ahhhhh as fireworks explode over head. Those fireworks, and the cotton candy and funnel cakes, are our way of reminding ourselves that this country was founded on some amazing principles and the people who put it together had amazing amounts of foresight and courage.

My biggest question, at this point, is what do we call the 250^thanniversary of our nation’s founding in 2026? Quarter Millennial? Bicenquinquagenary? Sestercentennial? Semiquincentennial? Those are all options…