Read this book and you will come away with the sure knowledge that this country was indeed ordained by God. There is no other explanation. Just a wonderful book.
Posted on 07/04/2011 12:56:11 AM PDT by Nextrush
I had a "front row seat" in the "cradle of liberty" 35 years ago today.
It was my good fortune to have been invited by family members living in an apartment three blocks from Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the festivities.
The week before and week after were filled with numerous events, official and unofficial.
At 6am on the morning of the 4th, I ate breakfast at a center city restaurant, then walked to see that large crowds were already gathered outside the police lines and areas closed off around Independence Hall.
A landing zone had been set up for President Gerald Ford to come in, It was a parking lot between an apartment complex and Penns Landing.
Ford's motorcade sped away from the lot as I walked towards it. Later in the morning around noontime I would watch Ford wave to the crowd at the lot's edge and board the chopper. Secret Service agents and police lined the lot.
Ford was the only American president I've ever seen in person while in office. By 1976 though I was a teenager schooled enough in conservative ideas to know that Ford was a mushy moderate.
My hopes at that moment were focused on Ronald Reagan, who was fighting it out in the state conventions and caucuses that followed the primary season to garner enough delegates to defeat Ford at the GOP convention.
Reagan would try drastic measures including naming a Pennsylvania GOP establishment man, Senator Richard Schweiker, as his running mate. Even that failed to shake enough Pennsylvania delegates loose for a Reagan win.
The radio preachers I listened to and conservative columnists I read in the newspapers were concerned about the leftist protesters gathering for the bicentennial in Philly.
I listened to local radio stations that day as I walked around wanting to hear their reports on the radicals protest. I carried a transistor radio in my pocket with an earpiece. That was the "latest technology" back then.
But the leftists were kept far away from the crowds downtown. I had walked up to City Hall a few days before the 4th when they held a rally. There probably were no more than a hundred of them shouting a few slogans. It was a far cry from the anti-war protest days of the late 60's and early 70's.
I snapped some pictures of the protestors with a Kodak Instamatic Camera. Remember those??? The most interesting members of the leftist crowd were the Molly Yard type females with sundresses on. Those "women" in hippie uniform had armbands on which read NLG-ACLU.
The letters stood for National Lawyers Guild-American Civil Liberties Union. While the ACLU has its own "progressive" roots, the NLG was formed around 1950 to defend Communist Party USA leaders who were busted for treason by the FBI.
The afternoon of July 4th, 1976 featured a large parade down Market Street in Philadelphia. Lifts were on hand at Independence Mall with TV cameras mounted. The video was fed to a nearby NBC tractor trailer which provded the "pool" coverage to the big three networks back then.
Pictures from events all over the nation were seen as the networks provided up to 16 hours of live continuous coverage that day,
On the evening of July 4th I was on the roof a fraternity house in the Society Hill area watching fireworks being launched from seven different locations in the city.
And a few days later I was on hand when the royal yacht "Britannia" docked in Philadelphia with Her Majesty the Queen on board.
I was carrying a protest sign, though.
That was because the attention seeking radio preacher that I was a groupie of back then was making a case against Her Majesty's bicentennial gift. The bell being presented was a Liberty Bell replica without a reference to "God" as was in the original.
By the way, the Liberty Bell had by this time been moved several hundred feet from Independence Hall, where I had seen it some years before, to a new home on Independence Mall.
I was 6, and our tiny little village in upstate NY had a wonderful parade, many activities, a reading of the Declaration at the village Hall, prayers (of all things!!) for the future, and speeches by local historians and the Mayor. We had a very active senior citizens group that all wore period outfits, made period food and candy, and my great Aunt, one of the Seniors, gave me a cute little doll, of the type a child would have in 1776. Another Great Aunt gave me a “Revolutionary War Sticker Book”, which sounds funny but I thought it was great. I still have the doll and the sticker book. These relatives are gone now, but helped create a love of history that will never leave me, and that sticker book was on my mind when I received my Master’s degree in history years later.
I wasn’t in Philadelphia in 1976, just in a small village of 2500 whose citizens celebrated and remembered what got us to where we were and how important it was.
I, along with my girlfriend at the time, were with friends
at their countryside lake house in west Tennessee.
The big event was watching the parade of tall ships
in New York harbor...hundreds from all over the world.
It was a memorable day.
Read this book and you will come away with the sure knowledge that this country was indeed ordained by God. There is no other explanation. Just a wonderful book.
I graduated high school that year, and moved to NYC (ostensibly to pursue my ballet career but that’s another story). Anyhow some friends and I went down to lower Manhattan and we watched the Tall Ships and then later the fireworks. So many people, it was crazy crowded but a lot of fun lol. Helicopters held a giant US flag over the Statue of Liberty while it was lit up with lights, the tugboats were spewing red, white and blue jets of water. The whole day was really spectacular.
Hard to believe that was 35 years ago.....
A few days before, my buddy and I were very surprised and disappointed when we heard that Israel was “negotiating” with the hijackers. When we met at the dock early on the Fourth, we both had big smiles on our faces since we had heard the news.
(Boy, the memories of that weekend come flooding back. lol)
Great book... HBO did a series on John Adams. I never saw this, but I heard it’s based off this book 1776. Watch the preview below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CNbQOrxQ-g
Okay I see he did a book on John Adams too.
I distinctly recall the sound, that day, of all the church bells ringing at noon in celebration of the Bicentennial.
I was tuned into the news that day and watched the TV news that evening to see the story of the rescue of the hostages at Entebbe.
A great piece of good news that day.
Naval ships from France and Brazil docked at Penns Landing in Philly the week before the 4th and I toured them.
The Brazilian sailors asked me what the names of the birdges were that crossed the Delaware River.
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