America's Bicentennial, July 4, 1976: Where were you?

July 4, 2015 | Shameless Vanity

[PROCON]

Today, America celebrates it's 239th birthday, but do you remember our Bicentennial celebration, July 4, 1976?

Come on you older FReepers, and you know who you are.

Where were you and what did you do that day, 39 years ago.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

Then I must have seen you! I was in Philadelphia watching the parade with my mom. But honestly, my biggest memory of the parade is watching a woman with a big skirt, standing over a subway grate, unconscious of her several “Marilyn Monroe” moments. So sorry if I didn’t cheer loudly for you that day :-)

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

“I should add that, while we awaited the concert, we read in the Boston Globe of the incredible exploits of the Israeli Defense Forces in their successful Raid on Entebbe..”

Thanks for that reminder! And a gentle reminder that the brother of Bibi Netanyahu, Yoni, was killed during the raid.

[Excellence]

I was in DC for the summer. Big controversy was the fireworks came from France. I was not impressed with them.

Strange little town, especially in summer.

[vetvetdoug]

It was on a Sunday and I spent it in the barracks watching TV and eating at the mess hall. I was at Keesler AFB, Mississippi and was an E-4 at the time. Fireworks in the Back Bay that night easily seen from the barracks.

[freepertoo]

I was in Columbia, Maryland, sitting on a hillside with my family to watch their big fireworks display. Directly behind us were a few wasted hippies who kept screaming FAR OUT!!! whenever a display went off.

[upchuck]

Small world!

I grew up in northern NJ and had moved to Louisville. Was back in NJ visiting friends when one of them said they’d booked several tables at WOTW for lunch on July 4th.

Yes, the schooners with their hugh sails were something.

[teeman8r]

We painted the fireplug like patrick henry...

Big thing to do on the streets of baltimore

[Western Phil]

Had just returned home from spending most of June in the Langdon, North Dakota area finishing up some acceptance testing on the soon to be operational Safeguard ABM site. The next fiscal year the Democrat congress voted not to fund its operation (approximately $0.50 per citizen per year). That generation spent about the same number of tax dollars on Safeguard as on the Lunar Landing. Fortunately, we ended up not needing it.

[catfish1957]

Flipping burgers at my summer job during college semesters.

[jwalsh07]

Guard duty.

[Nowhere Man]

9 years old, almost 10. IIRC, I marched in the Fairborn, Ohio parade.

I was 9, almost 10 as well. 1976 started out as a tough year for me. My parents separated and later divorced that year. Mom told Dad, "do not tell him (me) about the divorce until he's out of school for the summer." Mom was worried my grades, I was in 3rd grade then, would suffer. Dad told me in March out in the driveway, I remember it was still cold. I remember crying and Mom holding me but my grades did suffer greatly. Thanks to my 3rd grade teacher and my mother, they worked wit me to get them back up to where they should be but I came close to flunking. That was the worst thing that ever happened to me until Mom's death in 2013 eclipsed that

Also my glasses were still new to me, I started to wear them in November of 1975, I was so nearsighted and still am.

Mom just got a new job to help support me. I remember going over to my aunts and walking over to a nearby golf course to watch fireworks while early that day we watched the Parade of Ships on TV coming into New York Harbor.

In school, we did a lot for the upcoming BiCentennial with history, activities and so on and because of my problems, it provided a good relief and respite as well as education on history. That is why 1976 is special to me.

Since then, my father remarried, they are all I have left famiywise. Since 2009 until her death in 2013, when Mom heard "God Bless America" she would cry and say, "Obama is hurting this country so much." She did not want to doe while he is in office, she told me that once but I lost her anyhow. Now I cry for her. If she was here now, she'd by even sadder and angrier.

[crosdaddy]

Well,ok
I was at Frank (Al) Woodall’s (back up QB to Joe Nameth) condo,on east 53rd,between 1st&2nd.Al and his wife were at the Hamptons.I was with my girl friend,Al’s sister in law.I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in almost 8 weeks, I was 19 years old,hopefully no other explanation is needed.Al wife Betsey was a model for Wilamena model ag,she was very hot,so was her sister,my girlfriend.
One block away were a bunch of Tall Ships,and mega fireworks.Never saw any of it,see above for reason :-)

[KC Burke]

I spent the morning bringing my newborn son home from the hospital as he had been born a few days before. Sat with him in my arms in a rocking chair while his mom napped and he and it watched the tall ships on TV.

[PROCON]

Never saw any of it, see above for reason :-)

Oh, I get it, you two were discussing NY Jets offensive strategies :-)

[LonePalm]

I was with my family in Washington, NC celebrating not only the nation's bicentennial but the town's bicentennial.

I took 2nd place overall in both the Sunfish and the Rhodes 19 sailing Regattas on the Pamlico River.

"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[CodeToad]

Dayton, Ohio. Just a kid but thinking we have freedoms because we have truth. Truth that if the media were to lie we’d bust them on it. Did I say I was a naïve kid?

I asked my dad, a 30 year veteran, if in 1976 he thought badly of the country and how did he think of the country compared to then. He said we are so screwed. He knew of things being bad then as he was an advisor to Reagan and had been entrenched in politics, but he said anyone who said things would be as bad to day as they are was labeled a nut. He said we need to start listening to the nut more, and this isn’t the country it was even in 1976.

As a kid, I was immersed in patriotism. I felt bad for those in the USSR. I hoped I could be involved in the Cold War and help stop it so those people could be free like us. I later did, but I think we’ve only traded places.

[Alas Babylon!]

Just graduated high school two weeks before, getting ready to go into USAF basic training on July 22.

That day I went to a church BBQ and fireworks with my high school sweetheart. It was 3 weeks of goodbyes 😊

Songs we listened to on the radio:

Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight
Hall& Oates - She's Gone
Paul McCartney and Wings - Let 'em In
- Silly Love Songs
Seals and Croft - Closer To Me
The Bros Johnson - I'll Be Good To You
War - Summertime
Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music

[PROCON]

So Bossman, do you have a story here?

Was Free Republic even a pipedream back then?

[dasboot]

Newport RI. Watching the tall ships. Drinking and jamming with rockers Crack The Sky on a park bench, and hanging with the sailors from Spain.

[uglybiker]

I was nine years old and spending the summer with my grandparents on a little farm they had south of Nevada, Missouri.
Grandpa gave me a great big bag of fireworks and basically said; “Knock yourself out.”

Damn that was fun.