It was dusk turning to dark on July 4th, 1976 and Washington DC’s Bicentennial fireworks would start at any moment. Cathy and I were stuck in traffic on the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac. It looked like we were not going to make it in time.

I’d travelled to DC from West Point a couple of days earlier to visit Cathy for the big Bicentennial weekend. Events were going on all across the country, and our nation’s Capitol was having one of the biggest firework celebrations. We didn’t plan to miss it.

July Fourth dawned, and it was a beautiful day. We hung around Cathy’s, as we did not want to arrive downtown too early. There was a protest that morning, and a parade later in the day, and we planned to avoid both. Instead, we had a picnic at Cath’s with grilled steaks, and some of her world famous potato salad. Finally, we decided to drive to DC from her place in Alexandria.

Being young (and maybe foolish), I hadn’t realized how heavy the traffic was going to be in a pre-metro DC. The traffic was at a crawl as soon as we left Cathy’s apartment complex. We joined the throng, and slowly made our way towards DC. Time passed. More time passed. Finally we approached the Potomac River and everything came to a standstill. We were stuck in traffic on the 14th Street Bridge, and dusk was turning to dark. Suddenly, the first fireworks went off. What should we do? We obviously weren’t going to make it.

A car ahead of us made the first move, but soon there were several of us doing the same thing. We pulled out of the traffic and onto the median of the bridge and parked. We’d watch the fireworks from the bridge itself. It turned out to be a great vantage point to watch the unbelievable show taking place in DC. The Jefferson Memorial was in the foreground, with the Washington Monument behind it. I’ve since read that DC set off over 30 tons of fireworks that night and there were a million people in attendance. The display lasted a long time and was worth the drive to get there.

As great as they were, the fireworks weren’t the highlight of the night for me, or for Cathy. That was still to come.

The fireworks ended. We jumped in the car, did a quick u-turn and drove back towards Cathy’s apartment ahead of the traffic exiting DC. On the way, we decided to stop in Old-Town Alexandria and party some more. We tried to get into one of our favorite places, The Fish Market, but it was wall-to-wall people. As we were standing on King Street, we heard music coming from an upstairs bar across the cobblestone street and made our way to the entrance. We climbed the stair, and literally as we were opening the door to the bar, we heard –

“Good morning, America How are you?

Say don’t you know me? I’m your native son.

I’m the train they call the city of New Orleans

And I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done”

Arlo Guthrie had recorded the song “City of New Orleans” in ‘72 and everyone knew the words. Or at least everyone in the bar did, and we all joined right in. There were probably 70 or 80 people, all singing along. We may not have been in perfect harmony, but we made up for it with volume and enthusiasm. When the song ended, there was a huge amount of cheering, clapping and hugging, and people calling out Happy Birthday to America. Cathy and I both remember the utter joy in the bar that night more than anything else about the Fourth of July that year. Everybody truly was celebrating the 200th birthday of our country. It was amazing.

I’ve been thinking about that evening in 1976 as our Independence Day celebration approaches this year. The country went through a rough patch in the early 1970s leading up to our 200th birthday. Vietnam, anti war protests, Kent State, Nixon and Watergate, race issues, the assassination attempts on Ford, and multiple drug overdoses, including Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison, to name just a few of the issues of the day. And yet, to me on that Fourth of July, it felt like we were all in one boat pulling together. We weren’t Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, young or old, black or white. We were just Americans, and it seemed our differences were set aside, at least for that night.

Which brings me back to this year’s Fourth of July. It appears we are less united now and I sometimes wonder if we can bridge our differences any more. We have a seventeen year war, a drug crisis, race issues, and politicians, some more than others, who divides us. Hatred grows. I know we have gone through similar periods in our nation’s history, but online media accelerates and exasperates the situation. I try and think what the future might hold for this great country of ours, and the answer isn’t always clear.

Good morning, America how are you?