Are we doing anything next year?

The Bicentennial, in 1976, was a big deal.  The National Park Service, probably at Yellowstone, named a bison, “Tennial”.  That seemed awfully clever.

America’s 250^th anniversary is coming up soon, and nothing has been said about it.

This Wall Street Journal commentary brought this to mind.

In 1976, I was in 10^th grade, so had probably been hearing about the Bicentennial in school.  Cleveland had two newspapers and three television networks, so everyone was reading and watching the same news.  That coherence may have made the Bicentennial seem like a big deal, or it may have enabled the Bicentennial to be a big deal.

There was a Bicentennial logo.

With a five-pointed star, we could use that again by changing the text.

It seemed like everyone was doing something.  There were reenactments at historical sites, parades, special celebrations in historic cities and local parks were renamed. Even the US Mint issued Bicentennial quarters.   The Bicentennial was the theme for the Super Bowl.

Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, hosted the All-Star games for the NBA, NHL and MLB.  The NCAA had the Basketball Final Four tournament in Philly. 

Everything was painted red, white and blue, or got a decal or sticker.  By everything, I mean, mostly fire hydrants, city trucks and water towers.

In 1976, we had the only president that hadn’t been elected.  Gerald Ford was appointed to the VP slot when Agnew resigned, then was bumped up to POTUS when Nixon resigned.  He was fine, but not exciting.  Also, we had just gotten out of Vietnam.  Maybe that was it.  We needed patriotism because the government wasn’t doing too well.

Now, everybody gets there news from a different place.  Half of the country thinks the other half are crazy or treasonous.  We can’t seem to agree on anything, but maybe everyone could celebrate that we made it this long.  Really pessimistic people might think that this will be our last big anniversary.  That’s a good reason to celebrate with abandon.

I don’t know if this matters, but “bicentennial” sounds good and important.  The commission is going with  “semiquincentennial” for the 250^th anniversary.  Wikipedia provides the other possible options as “sestercentennial”, “bicenquinquagenary” and “quarter-millennial”.  Working on the millennium is better.  “Quarta” means quarter.  I would go with “quartamillennial”.

I’m not in charge of anything, so we are stuck with semiquincentennial.  Perhaps it’s still too early, and in a few months, our patriotic truck drivers will start renaming their rigs.