The subject of this week’s Watcher’s Council forum was the Fourth of July. Council members share their reflections here.
This was my contribution:
I was going to subject you to a lecture on the meaning of the Fourth of July. Perhaps another time.
Instead I’ll share some of my fondest memories of Fourths of Julys past.
I remember watching fireworks shot over the Meramec River from Aunt Margaret and Uncle George’s house on stilts down on the river. I remember fireworks displays in the Valley Park village square.
I remember enduring 90% humidity and 105 degree temperature with a million (not an exaggeration) other people under the St. Louis Arch 40 years ago on the Bicentennial Fourth of July.
I remember watching the fireworks going off at eye level from our friends’ 16th floor condo in Marina Towers on the marina.
Perhaps my fondest Fourth of July memory is of sharing a Fourth of July in a small town in rural Illinois. Veterans parading. Fireworks in the town square. Speeches by local politicians. A perfect Fourth of July of classic Americana. It was like taking a time machine and experiencing a shared understanding we’re in danger of losing.
