4th of July Recap
Matt Seinberg

I was in my last year of high school, in 1976, when the United States celebrated the Bicentennial, the 200th birthday of our great nation. Our high school decided to do something different. The art classes and history classes came together to create a walking history lesson of the Revolutionary War, in one of the classrooms. We called it Expo '76.

Art class painted, history wrote.

The art classes painted all the scenery, including miniature soldiers to show in various battles. The history classes wrote the narratives that the guides would use as they moved through the history of the Revolutionary War.

At first, I was bored just painting little soldiers and I decided to become one of the tour guides. You see, we invited not only all the classes in our school to come and visit, but any school on Long Island; many of them did come. It really was fun taking these classes on the tour since I was very interested in history and to show everyone all the work we put in to this project made it all worthwhile.

One of my classmates even wrote this in my yearbook, "I'll never understand how you got all the kids letters!" Since this is so many years ago, I'm guessing that I got thank you letters from many children for the great tour. Expo '76 only lasted half the year and I only got involved in the tours half way through, and even then, only during my free time. I guess I was a good guide!

As I looked through that 1976 yearbook, something stood out. We had great hair. It’s sad to say, that’s not true for most of the males, today. I'm sure the women still look good.

A step by Neil Armstrong.

Let's go back a little further, shall we? I was at sleep away camp in 1969, when on 20 July, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. My bunkmates and I huddled around the radio and cheered loudly when we first heard those famous words, "...one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

The wish, of President Kennedy, for an American to set foot on the moon before the end of the decade had happened. We heard it.

What most people think about on 4 July are fireworks, which celebrate the red glare of rockets during the Revolutionary War, and spending time with family and friends barbecuing hotdogs and hamburgers, and having apple pie for dessert.

Macys, the department store, puts on a great Fireworks Spectacular. This year, though the fireworks, themselves, were great, the presentation was sorely lacking. The hosts were loud and obnoxious and NBC Television cut all the performers before they finished singing to go to commercial breaks. I didn’t watch the entire show.

I was talking to someone, today, who was on duty at The World Trade Center, he's in the Army Special Ops division. Although he said things were relatively calm and peaceful, they had to be on alert for all terrorist threats. They'll stay on alert through the week at least, and then ramp down if there are no imminent threats.

It's nice to know that the brave men and women of our armed forces are ever vigilant in protecting our nation, and our way of life.

Americans stand on guard for Americans.

To those that wish to attack and disrupt this great nation, take warning, we will track you down, we will find you and we will take any and all measures to kill you. Let's not mince words here, okay. We will take all action necessary to protect our people and way of life.