THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607060011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty
LENGTH: 71 lines
Everybody eavesdrops on elevators.
Last week I overheard a pair of elevator repairmen moaning that Independence Day fell on a Thursday this year, cheating them out of a long weekend.
Etiquette dictates that one not jump into others' conversations, so I continued to stare silently at the control panel until I reached my floor.
But ever since this encounter, I've been remembering the glorious Fourth of July holidays of my childhood - and wondering why the Fourth has changed.
If people were honest, most would admit that the Fourth of July is now just another day off from work. Just another day to peruse the full-page sale advertisements in the newspaper and head for the mall.
But when I was a girl, the Fourth of July was magical: Children ranked it right up there with Christmas and Halloween. The hottest items the week before the Fourth were wheels of red, white and blue crepe paper. We would weave the stretchy stuff through the spokes of our bikes, add tricolored streamers to the handlebars and, voila! - we were ready for the annual Independence Day Parade.
Back then everything was closed on the Fourth of July. The local drugstore had a yellowed sign in its window with a phone number to call for emergency prescriptions. But if you ran out of bread or milk on the holiday, you were out of luck.
We began the day by getting our 48-star flag down out of the closet and reverently placing it in the flag holder by the front door. So did everyone else in town.
This year no houses on my street displayed the American flag on the Fourth of July. Not that people don't fly flags anymore. They do - now more than ever. Mostly imprinted with pineapples.
Another thing you never see on the Fourth of July is bunting. But in our little town, all the stately white-clapboard houses along Main Street were draped in bunting for the Fourth of July. I think it had something to do with providing a pretty backdrop for the town's parade.
And what a parade it was! The high-school band - its members sweating in red wool uniforms better suited to football season - led the way, followed by Little Leaguers, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, the rescue squad, the ladies' auxiliary, fire trucks, the Lion's Club, anybody with a convertible car or a horse and kids with their red, white and blue bicycles.
Early in the evening we'd do dangerous things like light sparklers, set off firecrackers and cherry bombs before heading to the fairgrounds for the annual fireworks display. The fireworks were not as elaborate as the ones we see today, but they were more exciting because we never saw fireworks any other time of the year. Now, every time a mall opens or a podiatrist moves to a new office, there are fireworks.
Why has the Fourth of July lost its magic? Why aren't we all hanging flags, singing patriotic songs and marching in parades on the Fourth?
Someone recently said that patriotism, like Christianity, has gotten into the hands of the wrong people.
I agree. For too many years ultraconservatives have wrapped themselves in the flag, declaring that they, and they alone, know what it stands for.
But I think patriotism's decline began with Vietnam and the lies Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon told.
In the late '60s and '70s, war supporters waved the flag while war protesters wore it. Once a symbol of national unity, the flag began to divide us.
So, many people folded their flags, tucked them away and never flew them again. What a pity.
Independence Day is a holiday we can all celebrate.
If there's one thing all Americans can agree on, it's that we're better off free than as subjects of Great Britain.
If there had been no American Revolution, the British royal family wouldn't just be providing us with light entertainment; they'd be costing us money. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB