General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone else here remember the "Bicentennial?"
And all the hucksters back then?
I was 16, and when I saw a snack food with a TV ad jingle that went, "They've got French fried flavor, and Yankee Doodle crunch!" it was the real low point for me.
Did watch the tall ships, though.
essme
(1,207 posts)My folks drove me to DC so we could tour the Smithsonian. I thought it was pretty cool.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)allan01
(1,950 posts)mainstreetonce
(4,178 posts)He's getting old.
PJMcK
(21,988 posts)Our float for homecoming included the iconic image from the American Revolution of the Flag Holder, the Drummer and the Fife Player.
Yeah, allan01, it was forty fucking years ago!
Own it. (wink)
OhioBlue
(5,126 posts)I was born in '72. There are pics of me, age 4, in a parade holding the "queen to be"'s crown. The pics show me on a patriotic float with young ladies in patriotic dresses. One of the contestants was my cousin's best friend, which is how I probably ended up on the float. I have very feint memories, I remember watching the float be decorated and actually remember the park where the parade started. My parents divorced within a year after that, and might have been separated shortly after so there wasn't really any recollecting about it.
PJMcK
(21,988 posts)None of us are as young as we think we are! Frankly, I don't care and I'll continue to behave as I want to.
JustAnotherGen
(31,780 posts)At a base 4th of July celebration in Weisbaden. That red, white, and blue get up my mom had me in. At least I'm not the only person whose mom acted the fool in that picture.
ChazII
(6,200 posts)JonathanRackham
(1,604 posts)Free enterprise at work. Wages paid and taxes collected.
Archae
(46,298 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)lapucelle
(18,187 posts)I remember everyone painting fire hydrants red, white, and blue or to look like miniature Revolutionary-era soldiers.
Even Queen Elizabeth paid a visit. I remember there was a kerfuffle because President Ford asked the Queen to dance while the orchestra was playing the song "That's Why the Lady is a Tramp".
Ex Lurker
(3,811 posts)Or at least they claimed it was. It may have been homemade for all I know. Then we went home and watched the tall ships on TV.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)I remember a firehouse about a block away from my grandmothers house and they had 1776-1975 on their firetrucks.
I remember this commercial...lol
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)Happyhippychick
(8,379 posts)mcar
(42,278 posts)PJMcK
(21,988 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 2, 2016, 10:59 PM - Edit history (1)
Were you old enough to vote in 1976? I proudly and excitedly voted for Jimmy Carter and ever since, I've been a loyal and ardent Democrat!
doc03
(35,293 posts)PJMcK
(21,988 posts)Was 1968 your first presidential election? I don't remember when the voting age was set at 18. Having read your thoughtful posts, doc03, I'm confident you voted Democratic!
Happy fourth of July.
doc03
(35,293 posts)if I voted in 1972. In 1976 I definitely voted for Jimmy Carter. Forgive me but in 1980 I voted for the Republican Reagan for the first and last time. What was I thinking? In 2000 I voted for John McCain in the primary but Gore in the general, couldn't stand "W". In 2000 John McCain seemed to be a good choice but in 2008 he went nuts. You have a nice 4th too.
PJMcK
(21,988 posts)Thanks for sharing your voting history, doc03. My biggest electoral regret is that I voted tor Ronald Reagan for his second term in 1984.
Here's the humorous story: My first wife and I went to vote after work that year and we ran into our neighbors from across the hall. We agreed to meet at the local Irish restaurant later that evening. By the time my wife and I got home after voting, the networks were calling the win for Governor Reagan. Since I had voted for President Reagan, my ex-wife was so angry that she blamed me for his re-election even though he crushed Senator Mondale by winning 49 states. As a result, she refused to join us for dinner and when I arrived at the restaurant, our neighbors didn't believe me when I told them why my wife wouldn't be joining us!
That is the only time I ever voted for a Republican except for a local election. There was a civil court judge who I new personally and he ran unopposed so I gave him my support. He was actually a great guy and helped out a lot when I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout leader.
jdadd
(1,314 posts)calimary
(81,085 posts)And they named their new bison... Tennial.
Seriously.
jdadd
(1,314 posts)My hometown (central Ohio) named a new city park, Bicentennial Park. After Sept 2001 Bicentennial Park was re named Patriot Park....I'm living in the middle of Red Hell!!!
MANative
(4,112 posts)That it's only ten more years to the 250th. I had no concept of the potential that I'd likely be alive to see that when I was that young. Our high school colors were red and white, and that year, everything had the blue added in! So cheesy, but I recall that we all got sucked into it!
aidbo
(2,328 posts)So the USA is 200 years and 35 days older than me.
PJMcK
(21,988 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)I sat with my legs dangling over the edge along the East River in the lower 70's somewhere, I think. The tallest ships couldn't clear the bridges, so we saw all the slightly smaller "tall ships" which was just fine.
Lots and lots of people waiting for a long time for them, then, we could hear a cheer coming down the East River, but couldn't see anything..
Then a guy in a rubber raft came into view, bumping his craft along the side as people clapped and laughed. (I'd forgotten that until just now)
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)Oh yeah, I remember it well!
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Bicentennial Minutes....
Brother Buzz
(36,364 posts)Inflation was taking a ding on my wallet, but it was still a blast to be foot-loose and free. Juxtaposition to that bicentennial shit, I celebrated the centennial of Custer's fall, the pompous ass, by traveling through the Little Bighorn area.
bhikkhu
(10,711 posts)and I think I still have a commemorative medallion from that. I used to save the quarters too, of course. I recall we got pancake syrup in special bicentennial design glass bottles, and I thought I'd save them because they might be collectors items someday (but I didn't). It was neat at the time. I don't recall ever paying much attention to commercials. We didn't have much money and I didn't like to ask my mom for stuff, so I tuned all that out.
dflprincess
(28,071 posts)mountain grammy
(26,598 posts)what a treasure!
Runningdawg
(4,509 posts)the winner from each state got a tour of America the summer of 76. I won from OK. Along with 49 others and chaperones we toured around a few weeks looking at historical sights, before stopping in DC for a week, ending with the 4th. I was 16. A little stupid too - I manged to sneak away from the group and find some really nice people to smoke with at the capitol. Yeah, I got in trouble with the head honcho in charge of us but I played dumb, saying I got lost and no one was any the wiser.
It was a fantastic trip, we learned a lot, had a ton of fun and made new friends. It's the most memorable thing about the year. On the flip side, I was damned glad when the red, white and blue madness stopped.
Lance Bass esquire
(671 posts)Before 24/7 cable news. All THREE networks ran special programming. Simpler..lol information times..miss them days at times.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)You seem to complain a lot.
And, as BNW pointed out, Nabisco's American Fries had been out for a couple of years.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19741024&id=LEcpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jmcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4175,4026816&hl=en
Archae
(46,298 posts)On "Weekend Update" Gilda Radner played a teenage girl who either had, or wanted to have, any and every Bicentennial trinket available.
And I had completely forgot who made the snacks, and what they ever were!
Just goes to show you, "Everything old is new again..."
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)On July 4, 1976, I went down to the Mall, met up with my brother, his wife, their two kids, and we watched the fireworks. Afterwards I walked almost all the way home before getting a ride the final mile. In fact, for about an hour after the fireworks ended no vehicular traffic could move because the million plus people who'd gone to the Mall that day simply took over the roads. There was a photograph the next day on the front page of the Washington Post showing peopled walking across Memorial Bridge, and they were using up all of the lanes of traffic.
My now ex husband was also there, although we wouldn't meet for another couple of years.
I intend to be there on July 4, 2026, and I've told my sons that they need to be there July 4, 2076, for the Tricentennial. And to tell every single person they see that their parents were there one hundred years ago. Older son will be 93, younger one 89, and there's a very good chance they would both still be around.
Plus, I believe in long-range planning.
One of the things that happened because of the Bicentennial was a huge revival in needle arts: embroidery, quilting, needlepoint, knitting, and crochet. And many of us who took up those things back then are still doing them forty years later.
liberal N proud
(60,332 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)is always a treat.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Those were the days.
woodsprite
(11,902 posts)I was 13 yo.
liberal N proud
(60,332 posts)I was 17 and owned the world. I lived in rural Iowa and ran contraband fireworks from South Dakota. We would make a road trip, fill our trunk and sell it for 3X what we paid.
That was the last carefree summer I had, the next year, I had to face the real world and grow up.
PufPuf23
(8,750 posts)rock to improve the soil and made a large American flag out of red and white petunias and blue lobelia.
I was 23 and lived with a gf and we rented (for $100 per month!) a small A-frame cabin with only a Franklin wood stove for heat and no telephone. I had taken off the 75-76 school year while an undergrad at Cal and rented that cabin for about 5 years it was so cheap and such nice view of the Klamath River even though spent more time in Berkeley.
Probably one of the most patriotic things I ever did.
The owners of the cabin lived nearby and would bring down their company to see the flower flag and my gf's pet (scraggly) pot plant.
Hekate
(90,534 posts)PufPuf23
(8,750 posts)I never started until I was 21 and already had a career Fed job.
I was detailed to a Berkeley office of the agency and worked part time while at Cal.
Was Fed 1969 to 1985 and resigned to go back for Masters.
Hekate
(90,534 posts)... (Almost matched) the Centennial plate I got from my MIL when she passed. So one of them is now 140 years old. I never hung either of them on the wall, but you know someday I might.
My first baby was born in December 1975, so I was doing young-mother things that year. I thought about all the ways the country had changed since 1876. I was still optimistic in many ways.
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)I think there was like one background that every school used
elmac
(4,642 posts)a Bicentennial pocket knife, cups, ect... was 16 also on the 4th back then.
Iggo
(47,534 posts)...with the business card of a local real estate agent attached to it.
And I thought, "Didn't it used to be verboten (or at the very least distasteful) to use the flag in advertising? When did that change?"
I think you may have provided me with my answer.
(I was 14, by the way.)
Sancho
(9,067 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)She got us passes to watch the parade of sails from that floor.
Every possible commercial was "Bicentennial (this or that). I had a summer job and was sitting near a woman who had a habit of loudly yawning. (It was a boring job). Anyways, another worker asked if she would please stop.
"That's my bicentennial whistle." We all got a kick out of that.
July 4, 1777. My cousin and I were riding back home to N.J. from Maine. He announced that we had to take a side trip to Marblehead, Mass. We got there around noon when he stopped the car near the town hall so we could go into that building.
There, on prominent display is the painting, "The Spirit of '76."
The Wizard
(12,532 posts)Bi Centennial quarters.
The empressof all
(29,098 posts)We had a ball! We were stationed at various points in the city to interact with visitors and answer questions. It was a great time to be in Philadelphia!
trackfan
(3,650 posts)I remember those "bicentennial minute" spots on TV. I remember lighting a lot of firecrackers on the day.
babylonsister
(171,029 posts)who brought a ship over. Yes, I remember, and it was a big deal.
jalan48
(13,839 posts)melman
(7,681 posts)I was nine and we were out at my grandparents' house in Lake Mohawk, NJ. I remember watching the tall ships on channel 5.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)We had just moved into a new house and my dad bought a lot of bicentennial fixtures. A liberty bell chandelier still hangs in that house. He had a big party with lot of fireworks that became a tradition.
I also vividly remember this filthy little ditty playing constantly.....
Rhiannon12866
(204,644 posts)HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)I remember Ohio, clothes, products, etc. looking like Old Glory was vomited over everything.
And Starland Vocal Band.
MFM008
(19,803 posts)High school. Special tassels n stuff.
My parents bought a floor room bicentennial dodge dart that had 'Spirit of 76' on the side of it in red and blue on a white car at least until my brother wrecked it one night.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)I was too young to notice any hucksters.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)It was originally scheduled to open (if I recall correctly) on the Fourth, but it was completed a bit early so (again if I recall correctly) on the first of July. By the Fourth it had hosted a million visitors.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)She was on the local Bicentennial committee and made a quilt for the Bicentennial celebrations. Actually she made two - her first one wasn't large enough. The second one was displayed at various events promoting the activities of 1976. People paid money so they could sign the quilt. I'm not sure where that money went, maybe to fund other events.
During 1976 Mom traveled around to schools with her quilt and samples of quilt blocks and gave talks about American history and about quilting. She became so well known that when the children wrote letters to her addressed to "The Quilt Lady, {my hometown}" the post office knew where to deliver them!
As a result of the preparations for the Bicentennial a local history association was formed. That group now has a museum of local history and for over twenty years my Mom was editor of their quarterly which printed many, many articles on local history.
I was in my last year of college and didn't pay much attention to the Bicentennial hoopla.
maveric56
(137 posts)The Queen came to our town. Tall ships were being welcomed into the harbor by fire boats with water cannons. There were many cool things going on. That evening we made our way to the Esplanade to watch Aurtur Feidler and the Boston Pops play to fireworks and a crowd of a million. It was fantastic.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)Blue body and the sleeves were red and white striped with stars and there was an eagle on the front.
Since I was so young, my shirt was 3 sizes too big. A lot of the kids made fun of me, but I was the only one who could spell bicentennial from memory.
All of our projects that year involved bicentennial themes.