Oh, we have so many ideas...but we do have three days, so maybe we can get to most of them. I think tomorrow we're going to go canoeing on the Ipswich River, and then go hear the Leftist Marching Band play patriotic tunes and toss the baton, and watch the fireworks. LT just found out about this wonderfully dorky opportunity to earn a patch from the NH State dept. of forests for visiting five fire towers, so we might do that - and we might just go to the beach, too. I wouldn't say anything is at the level of "tradition," except maybe fireworks, but it's always a fun holiday - especially when it falls on the weekend.

Hmm, though...for unconvential, I might nominate New England's "antiques and horribles" parades, of which there are many. I chatted with a co-worker this morning about the one in her town, which begins 8 AM. Amazingly, I cannot find a really good link on Antiques and Horribles. Basically, it's a Carnivalesque parade tradition that involves masking and character portrayal and social commentary and lots of silly costumes.

Saturday, my wife is performing a wedding on a houseboat in the DC harbor. Sunday, I'm going over to exogenous' house and constructing a pyrotechnic masterpiece out of (at least) 2.5 gross of sparklers, which we will ignite at the huge illegal dangerous fireworks show in our neighborhood. There will also be lasers. Monday, I'll be performing a wedding at the Tidal Basin.

I've never done much on the 4th. Mostly because I'm slightly scared of fireworks.

I avoid fireworks. I enjoy the empty city (everyone leaves for their FCH) and consequently restaurants requiring no reservations.

FCH?

Friend's Cabin HIgh?

Folk's Connecticut Houses?

Fairy Carnival Hootenanny?

Every year I read the Declaration of Independence.

I'm hoping that we can do something I haven't done for several years. We live next to the convention center on the lake, which means that we can just skip over to the rooftop garden and watch at least five fireworks displays at once from the suburban towns.

My parents live next to the high school's athletic field, which hosts a huge neighborhood celebration every year. When we were still living at home, our cousins used to come up and visit for the day. Apparently my mother decided that this meant she needed to dress in head-to-toe gold lame'.

Every year I read the Declaration of Independence.

This is great.

Doohickie, your celebrations sound like a hoot and so much fun!

I do the very traditional thing. We usually walk to the park to see the firework display and listen to a Independence Day concert. Our city center has a wonderful park and outdoor stage. We also go to the minor league baseball game that sets off fabulous fireworks after the game. This year the game is on the 4th so we'll just do that. On Thursday night we went to an excellent (and free) college symphonic band concert that played patriotic and Americana music.

In past years we used to set off fireworks in the back yard. We don't do this anymore out of respect for the neighbors.

FCH Fundamental Channel
FCH Frame Control Header
FCH Foundation for Cooperative Housing
FCH Florence Crittenton Home (Helena, MT)
FCH Flight Controllers Handbook
FCH Forced Convection Heater
FCH Family and Church History (LDS Department)
FCH Financial Congestion Hedge
FCH Facility Clearance Handbook
FCH Fuel Cell Heater
FCH Filter Change Handbook
FCH Fire Claims History (insurance)
FCH Flood Control Handbook
FCH Fluid Control Handbook
FCH Fresno, CA, USA - Fresno Chandler Municipal Airport (Airport Code)
Fch Fraction of Commercial Power Supplied by Hydro?

Felatio Congo Hall?

FHC = Figh Cuctose Horn Stirrup.

Not a tradition, but unconventional - one of my friends takes this week as vacation, as her birthday is later in the week, and goes down to Miami to see her family. She took her days off, but working in the restaurant biz, can't afford the tickets this year. Monday, we are going waterfall hunting - there is a place about an hour away that I've wanted to check out for years.

I love fireworks, but only if I can get right underneath them and feel them in my body. This means fighting crowds, and I rarely get to do it. Likewise, waterfalls, If I can't get in them, I don't want to just look. I suppose I'm a sensation seeker. Looks like I'll miss fireworks, but might get the swimming. All good.

For many years in a row, we would go to Hermosa for the 4th. My mom's house is in the middle of the insane beach scene on the 4th, and we would sit in the yard and watch the tourists go by and then watch everyone's fireworks on the beach. It would bring back memories and also elicit Daughter's incredulity that we don't still live there. Growing up, we always had fireworks on the block.

Recently I was sitting on my mom's wall and this tipsy little bikinied bimbette staggered by and handed me a cold can of beer, unopened. I thanked her and turned to my wife and daughter and mom and in my best Yakov Smirnoff accent, said, "Vat a country!"

Tonight we are having the neighbors over to grill. The first time anyone on my block has done this. We are having a refugee from Tibet, and there is also a Chinese family coming, who are here so the guy can go to U of O. While I was nervous about a Larry David type brawl with this combination, I checked it out with the Tibetan's American wife and she said it would be cool, in that he speaks some Chinese and does not harbor any grudges.

Country house.

When I working as a sidekick to underrated L.A. radio legend "Sweet" Dick Whittington in 1977, I spent July 4th in London, England, UK as part of the "Giving the San Fernando Valley Back(?) to the British" stunt; 64 hours from departure to return (because we couldn't broadcast FROM there and had to run back to air the stuff we taped). We 'hit the ground running', so actual memories of the actual trip not committed to audio tape are permanently clouded by untreated jet lag.

But before then, I co-wrote a parody of the Declaration of Independence for the project we called "The Declaration of Proclamation", my most successful comedy collaboration, and of the 3 co-writers, I contributed almost 55% of the actual jokes. We essentially went through line-by-line and deconstructed it, starting with "When in the course of humorous vents, it becomes necessary for one people to learn proper grammar and call him-or-herself 'one person' and break up the band which has connected him-or-her to the drummer who can't keep a beat and the bass player who doesn't even show up for rehearsal..."

Yes, I also contributed the wording "We hold these truths to be irrelevant" after we voted down "irreverent" as too obtuse, and I WISH I could remember the whole thing or had kept a copy, since I cannot recreate exactly how we made "all men are created equal" into a mix of intentionally awkward gender neutrality, subtle-enough-for-AM-radio reference to dick size and math joke using 'greater-and-or-equal-to'", but we (all male and college-age would-be comedians) did. I do recall it had a record number of hyphens for a piece written mostly for radio.

And being the representative of the show to a meeting of the San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce to bring the final caligraphed document to get signatures ala the original was mildly terrifying, but that was when I realized exactly what a beloved character Sweet Dick was in that massive suburb of the more massive L.A. metro area. Most of the leaders of a serious movement for the Valley to secede from the City of L.A. signed it, either unaware or uncaring that the whole stunt was parodying their cause. As well as three local elected officials, including a sitting L.A. City Councilman. Surreal.

Worth remembering: July 4, 1977 was one year after the orgy of American patriotism called The Bicentennial, and the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee (a year-long celebration ending with the 25th anniversary of her coronation in June 1953, which, coincidentally, my mother had been in London for, as a break from her year as an exchange teacher in Wales - she was one of "An estimated three million people lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the new monarch" and she did get a little Royal wave.)

On July 4th itself, a Monday and a normal working day in the UK, I made my most absurd side trip to Lloyds of London, the 300-year-old insurance exchange with which my insurance underwriter father had done business with for years, and which he offered to give me access to - how could I refuse. As I showed up with my little cassette tape recorder, my dad's friend at Lloyds cajoled the PR department to allow me to be the FIRST broadcast media person EVER to record audio inside the massive trading hall. When we returned to L.A. and the tapes were played, my 10 minutes interviewing my dad's friend at Lloyd's was deemed boring (it was) and edited down to a formal greeting and 15 seconds of ambient trading hall noise (I sheepishly sent him the full tape).

Yeah, that was an unconventional way to spent the Fourth of July, even if you're not USian.

Wow! Much better stories than I thought I might get.

Thanks everyone, and have a safe and happy 4th!

I sometimes enjoy the concert in the park, but it's full of "stand up for your service, troops!" and awful stuff the conductor composed as a salute to veterans. At least it delves into Ride of the Valkyries and 1812 Overture, but it's still pretty drab stuff and I refuse to stand for anything but the actual national anthem, which makes me a stick-in-the-mud. I try to have food or ice cream in my hand as an excuse not to clap the beat, white people style, during God Bless America.

The fireworks here are always 15 minutes too long for me, too.

awful stuff the conductor composed as a salute to veterans

Yes. This. I hate when they do "alternate arrangements" of the classic songs, often mixing them together in a gruesome medley.