Bicentennial memories

It's strange to think how rapidly the number of Americans who remember the Bicentennial celebrations is diminishing. Today my wife and I and our daughter went to see Young Washington, Angel Studios' cinematic account of George Washington's role in the French and Indian War. Afterwords we were talking to a woman in her 40s who loved the movie, but felt the there wasn't enough attention being paid to today's 250th anniversary.

I was 12 in 1976, which was a great age for experiencing and remembering such a big celebration. Everything that year was about the Bicentennial: There were "Bicentennial Minutes" on TV -- little historical vignettes between shows. The official Bicentennial logo was everywhere. Quarters, half-dollars, and dollars featured special reverses. The Bennington flag, which featured the number 76 amidst the stars of the field, was everywhere. It seemed like a huge deal, and by contrast this year's efforts for the semi-quincentennial have seemed a bit underwhelming to me.

1976 was in the midst of a tough and divided period in American history. For the first time ever, the President of the United States had resigned after two years of scandal over a break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters and the subsequent coverups. American troops left Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese Communists overran South Vietnam, which the USA had been defending. President Ford's pardon of President Nixon, meant to bring healing, scandalized many Americans. The USA's support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War led to the Arab oil embargo and gasoline rationing. Inflation was out of control. American manufacturing faced challenges from Europe and Japan as they emerged from post-World War II reconstruction. Ford's campaign for a term in his own right drew a strong primary challenge from Ronald Reagan, and an obscure Southern governor pulled off an upset in the Iowa Caucuses that led to his nomination and election as President. Americans felt defeated and exhausted, a far cry from the prosperous and energetic post-war period just 20 years earlier.

The world was in an uproar, too. As Americans prepared to celebrate the country's 200th birthday, Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris and flew the jet to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Non-Israelis were released, and the terrorists threatened to kill the Israeli hostages. A daring raid by Israeli commandos freed the hostages on the 4th of July.

The big event for us in Tulsa was the American Freedom Train. For four days, March 15-18, 1976, a 10-car exhibit of American artifacts was parked on the Midland Valley Railroad tracks, east of Elgin between 4th and 7th Street. (The tracks and the viaduct that carried them over 6th Street are long gone.) The 26-car train, pulled by steam locomotives, traveled to all 48 contiguous states, making 140 stops over an 21-month period. You traveled by moving walkway past artifacts from the 200-year sweep of American history: From George Washington's copy of the Constitution with his handwritten notes, to the Louisiana Purchase, to Lincoln's stovepipe hat, to a Lunar Rover and a rock brought back from the Moon on Apollo 16. Carson Attractions handled the tickets ($2 adults, $1 senior citizens and children 12 and under), and Bill White Chevrolet provided a big shelter on their car lot for people to wait in line.

The ticket states that the train was at the old Midland Valley Station, but I don't recall noticing the station. I remember boarding the train on the west side of the tracks; the station was on the east side.

An interview during that Tulsa visit with the man heading the Freedom Train effort (jump page) makes me feel a little better about this year's celebrations:

It was opening night of the American Freedom Train's four-day Tulsa visit and, judging from people's reactions, it will accomplish the goal its president described: "Remember that if freedom is going to be kept alive, it's up to us to do it. "You as an individual should gain some greater insight into why our nation has become what it has," Petr L. Spurney, chief executive of the American Train Foundation, said of the 12-car exhibit....

Spurney was called in to save the foundation in July, having just rescued Spokane's Expo '74 from financial ruin. An expert in "extravaganzas," Spurney says America needed a giant exposition in 1976 "the nation as a whole could relate to." (A Philadelphia fair was scrapped after $10 million worth of planning.)

THE FREEDOM TRAIN IS THE only Bicentennial project with enough nationwide scope to unify the people, but even it is locally oriented since it can only be in one place at one time.

"I hope that when the Fourth of July message comes--the celebrations, parades country develops some national goals out of it," Spurney, 41, said. Global goals, too. For the nation's birthday, he reminded its citizens, is the birthday of democracy on earth.

"The rest of the world is looking at the Bicentennial--and they don't know what's going on," said Spurney, concerned. He fears, too, that Americans don't know what's going on, either.

"WHEN THE BICENTENNIAL IS all done, it's not going to go down in history as a great celebration," he predicted. "A lot of people on July 5 are going to wake up with a big, Bicentennial hangover and not feel like they have anything to remember.' He blamed it on lack of federal financial support. The Freedom Train hasn't a cent from Uncle Sam's, wallet--not even a $2 admission ticket, but Spurney knows why. "Our forefathers made a mistake. "They didn't realize the Bicentennial would be the same year as a presidential election." The Freedom Train, at least, may remind people to vote.

Here's a list from the beginning of 1976 of planned Tulsa observances: A parade down Riverside on the day itself, run by the American Legion, and a picnic on the grounds of Gilcrease Museum; Festival '76 downtown at the end of May; and KRMG's Great Raft Race on Labor Day.

I had pleaded with my parents to take us to Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston during the Bicentennial year, but they couldn't make it happen. (We would see the first three cities the following summer.) Instead, later in July 1976, we spent a week in St. Louis, riding to the top of the Gateway Arch and touring the Old Cathedral, visiting the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Garden, seeing Grant's Farm and the Clydesdales, touring the Anheuser Busch Brewery (the only time I saw my folks ever take a sip of beer), and ending the week at the National Transportation Museum. We stayed in a tent at the KOA in Allenton, near Six Flags Over Mid-America, where we spent a day. Dad had to fix the tent zipper in a thunderstorm, and he had to dig a little trench around the entrance to keep the water out. We were in St. Louis when Viking 1 landed on Mars and began sending back pictures to Earth; I remember seeing one such photo on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

I spent the Bicentennial Independence Day with my mom and dad and sister with the rest of the McGee clan at my Uncle Warren and Aunt Nettie's place. They lived in Coffeyville, but they had a trailer out on a piece of land near Grand Lake. I remember going past Buffalo Ranch in Afton to get there. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and had homemade ice cream. We watched a fuzzy picture on a portable TV of the Bicentennial celebration in Philadelphia where President Gerald Ford spoke and rang the Liberty Bell. The only fireworks were the ones we set off.

My wife lived near Washington, DC, in 1976. She and her family would go down to the National Mall to see the annual fireworks, Typically you could be almost anywhere near the Mall and see the fireworks because they were fired high into the sky, but she remembers that in '76, a French company provided a very elaborate display, but one that went off low to the ground near the White House, and thus invisible to much of the gathered crowds.

Back in Tulsa on the 4th, the Tulsa Oilers split a double-header against the Oklahoma City '89ers at Oiler Park, wearing old-fashioned uniforms for the occasion, with fireworks after the second game. (That summer, several major league teams took to wearing old-fashioned pillbox-type ballcaps, most prominently the Pittsburgh Pirates, who kept them for the next decade.) The 1976 season was the final one for AAA baseball in Tulsa. A. Ray Smith moved the Oilers to New Orleans for the 1977 season.

The 4th was a Sunday in 1976, and Tulsa's churches promoted special patriotic services: Boston Avenue Methodist held a 12-hour prayer vigil leading up to their Sunday morning early service. ("One Nation Under God: Renewing, Repenting, Remembering, Rejoicing, Recommitting.") At First Presbyterian, Dr. Wiseman was preaching a special Bicentennial sermon: "The Future We Make." The Chancel Choir would perform an anthem specially commissioned for the Bicentennial and would also sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." First United Methodist Church titled its special event, "If My People," an allusion to 2 Chronicles 7:14; the extravaganza aired on KTUL channel 8. Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, meeting in a storefront east of 21st and Sheridan, focused its ad on God's providence over the life of our nation and over each individual life:

IT'S NO ACCIDENT that July 4 is America's birthday. It's no accident that many who came to the new world were seeking religious freedom. Many of those who shaped our nation believed the teachings of God's Word, the Bible. These events, like all things, are under God's control. Where is our nation going today? What is guiding your own life? God's grace in Jesus Christ is the only hope for you and for our land.

It's no accident that July 4 is Sunday this year. We invite you to worship with us, to give thanks for God's blessings, and to pray for the future.

GRACE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
6540 "K" East 21st
Sunday School 9:45 a.m.
Morning Worship 11:00 a.m. "Where Is America Going?"
Evening Service 5:00 p.m. "40 and 200"
Phone 743-0142

Exciting Eastwood Baptist Church earned its nickname with a special appearance by Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger and the man who sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," at a Bicentennial Concert that evening, followed by an ice cream social.

College Hill Presbyterian celebrated with a colonial-style communion, featuring "fencing the table," "communion tokens," and communicants sitting around a table to receive the bread and wine. The pastor of Central Church of the Nazarene was not in a celebratory mood:

Noting the material abundance available in affluent America, Rev. Eugene Sanders, minister of Central Nazarene Church, told his congregation,"My Bible tells me all this will be 'burned up when our Lord returns.'

"Recognizing the heresies, doctrinal errors, accepted perversions in the church, one must shudder! Clergy are abandoning in alarming numbers. Laity desertion is accelerating. Immorality scandals shock our decency. Betrayal of leaders hurts. Pornography and overt sexuality flourish. Crime is rapidly escalating. Our leaders, too often, disgustingly and shamefully will not take a stand but succumb (in a cowardly manner) to the sensuous appetites of the masses.

"Honestly, I can see little to celebrate in the vital life style of a nation where thousands can run the beaches nude, 'living together' socially acceptable; a segment of the church world is pushing for homosexual ordination, there is denial of literal truth of the Bible, lectures presented as sermons, and judgment of a man (on the basis of) what he owns rather than what he is.

"We need a revival of Christian ethics, worship and service before we can celebrate here."

I don't remember anything special happening at our church, but I suspect we sang the National Hymn, "God of Our Fathers."

There were parades, picnics, and fireworks displays all over Green Country. River Parks held a four-day festival focused on the Pedestrian Bridge (now demolished), which was newly open to the public in 1976. Ponca City held a Grand Prix. Elvis Presley performed an afternoon concert at ORU's Mabee Center. Discoveryland Amphitheater out in west Tulsa County opened its doors for the first time with the premiere of "Dust on Her Petticoats," the story of Alice M. Robertson, the second woman to be elected to Congress (the first one from Oklahoma), who was swept in by the Warren G. Harding landslide in 1920 only to be defeated two years later.

Meanwhile, down in Texas, Willie Nelson held a picnic, too, his fourth annual. (The fifth would be at the Tulsa Speedway in 1977.)

Tomorrow, I'll share some reflections on America's 250th birthday and some other memories of Independence Days past.