ShareThisJuly 2, 2010 Despite its reputation of being number one when it comes to celebrating the Fourth of July and the Millennium Park’s being named by Priceline.com as the number one destination for this event this year, Chicago has scaled back its 4th of July fireworks. For the first time, a 35-year tradition of holding its fireworks display in Grant Park, near the Taste of Chicago on the third of July will cease and the city will instead have fireworks display in three different spots on the lake on Sunday, July 4th.
As reported, the city will host simultaneous 9 p.m. shows on the water near Montrose Beach, with premier seating from Foster to Montrose avenues, and on the South Side, around 63rd Street Beach, the best seats for which stretch from 63rd Street to Promontory Point. Both displays will be synchronized with the show at Navy Pier. The city is expected to save several hundred thousand dollars with this new plan. In addition, officials say it is a way of bringing the celebration closer to the people. It’s another effect of economic recession and a simple way people try to cope with it. How it will affect the future of Chicago as a tourist destination on the 4th of July is yet another thing though.
Although some cash strapped communities have altogether scrapped the fireworks in their 4th of July vocabulary, other communities have become creative and found a way to give the people the same spectacle by joining forces and funds with other communities. In adversity, people learn to make things work with little resources. They learn to survive the hard times by making do with what they have like cutting back on many things they can live without. The key is surviving the hard times until the economy rebounds and the good times are back.
So, when they used to have steak for their backyard barbecues to celebrate this occasion, they switch to hot dogs and hamburgers and pork chops if they could still afford them. They don’t have to give up the celebration because of recession. They just have to simplify their celebration and do it within their means. Tradition is not about the process; it’s about the essence. It’s about preserving the significance and meaning of the occasion. The process expands or shrinks but the core value of the occasion which is at the heart of this tradition remains intact. So, what is July 4th all about?
It isn’t about fireworks or barbecues in your backyard. It isn’t parades and concerts in the park either. It is a celebration of America’s independence, of this country’s freedom and the blessings of liberty. It’s about the valiant men and women in uniform who keep fighting and putting their lives on the line to safeguard this freedom we seem to take for granted.
As Thomas Jefferson once lamented, “My God! How little do my countrymen know that precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” His voice, from a distant page in US history, incredibly rings true until today. In fact, more so today than it was in his time. And it’s all because we were lost in the midst of the merriment. All that we’ve been shown growing up were the fireworks, the parades and the barbecues.
But while they are all fun part of the celebration that has become a tradition, they aren’t nearly as important as teaching our children the great history and the stories of courage that brought them to this celebration.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s words still resonate among those who knew or simply learned history. He said, “Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”
In the words of Daniel Webster, “May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! “ and the declaration of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore!” we join the rest of the nation in shouting, “Long Live America!” God bless America!