Fourth of July--Then and Now

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

Published by the StarTribune

July 1, 1961

   MY SON will be able go get a few rolls of ammunition for his cap gun--if he's not too old to disdain such--and perchance may acquire some sparklers.  But that will be the extent of his Fourth of July do-it-yourself pyrotechnics.  Most kids will be similarly restricted.  

   In the course of human progress, Independence Day has become relatively safe in the fireworks department.  Thirty-eight states have laws so restrictive that the celebrator can do little more than pop his knuckles and in most others there is some degree of control.

   Since we value human life, this is all to the good, but as I ponder my progeny's pallid efforts to mark this milestone in our history, I cannot forget that traffic now kills more people on July 4 than fireworks ever did.

   This doesn't mean I'd want the holiday to be celebrated with the no-holds-barred abandon it once was.  If it were, I'd not permit a child of mine out of the house and would be loath to leave it myself.

   BUT BACK in the boom-boom yesterdays any kid who roamed abroad with nothing more lethal than sparklers or a cap gun would have been judged insane and laughed out of town.  To qualify for the demolition corps you had to stick to firecrackers a minimum of two inches long (usually lighted in the hand), torpedoes which exploded with shattering violence when thrown against a hard surface, and giant crackers the size of stove wood capable of lifting a privy from its moorings.  

   Loud noises frightened me when I was tiny.  Luckily I conquered the phobia.  Otherwise the Fourth of July in Choteau, Mont., where they did everything but burn down the courthouse, would have been intolerable.

   A MAJOR part of the  celebrating was done around the saloons, the kids shooting firecrackers outside while the menfolk got shot within.  On one Fourth that I well remember a bunch of the boys were whooping it up outside the Family Liquor store and Wallace Coffey, a lad who put heart and soul into the observance, tossed a king-size boomer into the entrance of the place just as Ewing Steel, who drove the stage between Collins and Choteau, was coming out.
Ewing was an angular, rough-hewn character who got more mileage out of profanity than anyone I ever encountered.  He was visibly shaken by the blast but after satisfying himself that he hadn't caught fire and was only slightly crippled he rent the air with a string of epithets that scattered the firecracker set like prairie chickens.

   THE LADIES AID always had a picnic in the park featuring lemonade in washtubs, potato salad, watermelon, ice cream and an oration..  There was a greased-pig chase with the winner getting $5 from the Rod and Gun club, a ball game complete with rhubarbs, horse races and usually a rodeo.

   The day was concluded with father officiating at the fireworks ceremonial in the back yard--roman candles, skyrockets and pinwheels.  After it was over, mother put salve on your burns and you went to bed with a sense of completion.

   It was a more memorable day, certainly, to you who lived it, than you'll have next Tuesday, not merely  because you then had the bright-eyed wonder and enthusiasm of youth but because the Declaration of Independence is now more remote in time and we observe it with a more sophisticated calm.

   There are now more diversions and complexities, more worries and more of everything to swivel the mind from simple things enjoyed in a less cluttered yesterday, a yesterday when doing one thing at a time was considered enough.

Copyright 2015 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune