Who's old enough to remember bicentennial fire hydrants?

[Bucky]

When I was a kid this seemed perfectly normal.

I mean, who would even think to start something like this?

[Rhiannon12866]

1. OMG! I remember those!

They look perfectly normal to me, too! Seeing this gave me a bicentennial moment!

[surrealAmerican]

2. That one's fancy.

Where I grew up they painted them to look like minute men, but without anything like that level of detail.

[NV Whino]

3. Never saw one with that detail

But I saw a lot of straight red, white and blue ones.

[MissMillie]

4. you really want us to admit to that?

I mean, er...... no. I don't remember

[kentauros]

5. Hah!

I'm old enough to remember this:

[orleans]

15. "spirit of '76" was a disco in the chicago burbs

i admit i went a couple times, had a problem getting into disco suburbia--gay discos in the city were far better & a year later i was hitting the punk clubs in the city

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I understand they had to discontinue them because they inspired moral torpitude.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. The Catholic nun from my high school...

...who decided my senior yearbook should change from the traditional and dignified school colors using high grade synthetic padded leather to some low grade plastic in red, white and the sickest shade of baby blue known to man.

[krispos42]

8. In my town a volunteer group is painting every single hydrant as a Revolutionary War soldier

British, to be specific.

[progressoid]

9. Old enough to remember AND forget them.

Honestly, I forgot that was a thing.

[shenmue]

10. I was only three in 1976

They may have had them where I was, but my memory's a little hazy.

[AwakeAtLast]

11. Me!!!!

I was six and thought they were cool!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

12. Ha! My only recollection of the 4th of July in that year

is asking my wife to pull over so I can puke my guts out after a party............

[PasadenaTrudy]

13. I do. I was 12 in 1976 :) n/t

[KMOD]

14. I don't remember any that clever

but I do remember a lot of red, white and blue ones.

[orleans]

16. i don't remember those

maybe our town never bothered with that

or maybe i was too self-involved to notice (those 70s years were a busy time! lots of growing up, hanging out, getting high, driving around, etc etc)

[Rhythm]

17. I remember seeing them when driving through Emporia VA

I was 10 that year, and we went back-and-forth between my home in Charlotte and my grandparents' home in Hampton VA...

Emporia did interesting things... each block would alternately be Continental soldiers or Redcoats!

[Art_from_Ark]

18. I don't remember Bicentennial fire hydrants, but I do remember Bicentennial Minutes

[Arugula Latte]

19. Yerp.

There was a hell of a lot of red, white & blue that year.

[Archae]

20. I don't remember those.

But I do remember all the other Bicentennial hucksterism going on.

On TV an ad for a snack food had two Revolutionary War drummers, and the jingle went "They've got French Fried flavor, and Yankee Doodle crunch."

Oh, it was ridiculous, a local diner had a "Pie-Centennial."

I was in High School at the time, and for History class I did a presentation about the facts of the Bicentennial, including how some of the Founding Fathers hated each other.

Got an A on the assignment!