Semiquincentennial?

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I had no problem at all fifty years ago saying "bicentennial." It's an easy word to pronounce. Bicentennial. Actually, it's kind of fun to say bicentennial. Definitely a word that trips lightly off the tongue, it flows easily out of the mouth, like blubber, flabbergasted, or abracadabra. Not only that, but you know instantly what it means. Bi is two and centennial is one hundred, so bicentennial is two hundred. Easy. Even a mathematical moron like me gets it.

On the other hand, we now are faced with "semiquincentennial" which is not easy to remember, let alone to pronounce. A cumbersome word that also sounds pretentious and forced. So I avoid it and instead refer to the coming 4th of July as the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Still a mouthful, but easier to understand. And at my age, I'm into stuff that's easier to understand.

Semiquincentennial could be an Indian name, you know, like Sacagawea or Tisquantum. Semiquincentennial sounds like he might have been one of the early Indians who ate with the pilgrims at the first thanksgiving. But we know that was really Squanto. Semiquincentennial also sounds like it might be a horrible disease which afflicts the lower regions of the large intestine. It also has the ring of some kind of a world-wide athletic marathon event that takes place every 100 years in major cities in third world countries that no one has ever heard of.

But now I'm being silly, because we know it means the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We know that because I just told you two paragraphs ago. Remember? So let me ask you, what are you doing to do to celebrate this auspicious occasion? Watch baseball? Barbeque hot dogs and hamburgers and spare ribs? Watch fireworks? Go to parades? Fly your American flag? Sing patriotic songs? Wear clothing that is red, white, and blue? Shoot off firecrackers? Eat apple pie? You do all those things every single Independence Day. What are going to do on this very special Fourth of July that is different? Maybe you'll do what the late Don Rickles might have suggested; drop your pants and fire off a rocket.

But all seriousness aside, as Steve Allen used to say, what is there to do this year that would make the 250th stand out as a unique and special celebration? Well, hold on to your fireworks ‘cause I'm about to spring something on you that you probably never thought of doing in a hundred years, let alone two hundred and fifty years.

Read the Declaration of Independence. Read it out loud to the family and to your friends, if you have any. Read about Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, and other of our Founding Fathers. Read the events that led up to and continued into the American Revolution, like the Boston Tea Party, the Liberty Tree, the convening of the First Continental Congress, Paul Revere's Ride, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington's crossing of the Delaware, the winter at Valley Forge, and the Battle of Yorktown.

Understand what it is that makes America truly unique and important. Think how lucky you are to live in such a country. Name another country that is better, freer, and offers its people more liberty and opportunities than the United States of America. As Jewish World Review columnist, Dennis Prager has said, "America is the only country founded not on a race, ethnicity, or nationality, but on an idea: limited government—because the founders of America believed, first and foremost, in liberty."

Spend a little time getting to know this wonderful, beautiful, very special place called America. It's much more than a country, it's an idea. An idea of independence itself. The idea of freedom. Then after you've learned a bit more of America the beautiful, then go ahead and watch the fireworks and have a barbeque to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country.

Just don't call it Semiquincentennial. .

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