In my humble opinion (and that of several others in this forum), America’s 250th birthday cannot hold a sparkler, er … candle to the fervor that surrounded the Bicentennial celebration in 1976.

I’ve already regaled you with my own personal 1976 events a few weeks ago and I’m here again to reflect on what was happening on that special 200th anniversary, an event not just celebrated on a single day, but over the course of the entire year. For the younger set reading this post, remember this was long before social media, so we saw celebrations and events happening on the TV news, read about them in the newspapers, or, if we were lucky, perhaps participated in that fun and frivolity.

Today, I have just a few photos and a tale or two to share with you.

Lady Liberty and Lady Linda.

In my June 7th post I told you about our group of six that participated in the National Model United Nations Conference in New York City in April 1976. If you missed that post, you can find it here.

You’ll recall that as tourists, one item on our “to do” list was visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Back then there were no restrictions on visiting Lady Liberty, nor a need to book your visit months in advance. We simply hopped on the Staten Island Ferry and there she was. We admired her from afar …

… but the highlight of visiting the Statue was climbing to her crown for the ultimate view of New York’s harbor. We were all young, so no problem to make that climb, right? Except NYC was experiencing a wicked heat wave that week and the higher we climbed up the narrow staircase encased within the copper statue, on a sweltering hot afternoon, the more we began to regret not just looking up and taking a corny picture like this and telling everyone back home “of course we climbed to the top of the crown!”

I guess we were too busy prepping for the UN event, to find out about Lady Liberty’s measurements, from toe to top, because visiting Lady Liberty’s crown required navigating 393 steps from the main lobby, including 162 steps up a steep, narrow, double-helix spiral staircase from the pedestal to the crown and then, of course, back down again. Whew! But we did it and lived to tell about it in April of that Bicentennial year.

As American as baseball, hotdogs, apple pie ….

Even though Mark “The Bird” Fidrych was not an official part of America’s 200th birthday celebration, he probably had as much publicity as ol’ Uncle Sam that Summer. He was the 1976 American League Rookie of the Year, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and full of quirkiness like talking to the baseball, or getting down on his hands and knees to tidy up the pitcher’s mound. He got his nickname because he had a mess of golden curls and people said he resembled “Big Bird” on the TV show “Sesame Stret”.

“The Bird is the Word” became Detroit’s mantra in May 1976 after he made his Tiger debut. He lived in an apartment in Riverview, so all the locals knew his whereabouts, including the barber shop he frequented. Some enterprising person scooped up some shorn locks and was selling them – yes, he was that popular. Jack and Bernice Loveday, who owned the Dairy Queen down the street from Carter’s, asked my coworker Leslie and I if we thought they should schedule an appearance by “The Bird” at their DQ – we gave them a resounding “yes” and “please can we meet him personally?” They contacted his agent and by then he was so popular, his guest appearance price was exorbitant, so our hopes of meeting this local celebrity were dashed. Unfortunately, a torn rotator cuff resulted in early retirement five years later, then sadly our local celebrity passed away while repairing a truck on his Massachusetts farm in 2009.

Happiness is a bike ride away… or maybe not?

The Summer of 1976, just like all the school vacations after high school and throughout college, I worked six days a week at Carter’s, a diner which only closed two days per year: Thanksgiving and Christmas, so, July 4, 1976, 200th birthday or not, I still donned my waitress uniform and slung hash from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. My parents did some grilling when I got home and then I went out for a bike ride afterward to pedal away those calories.

This was the bicycle I was riding (photo from 1970).

I was spiffed up in the spirit of the 4th of July in red, white and blue, wearing this exact outfit (photo from 1974).

I was on Fort Park Avenue, pedaling away, sans bike helmet because they weren’t a “thing” back then, when a woman drove out of the parking lot at Leone’s Bar and hit me. The bike and me toppled to the ground. She didn’t stop and a woman sitting on her porch nearby, got up and went into the house. Nice! I had some road rash on my legs, was bruised on my thighs, but otherwise fine. I wheeled my broken bike to the police station, a few blocks away.

I knew most of the police officers as they often stopped in for coffee (and yes, donuts). For years Carter’s prepared the prisoner meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and various patrol officers came to pick up those meals. Several of my high school classmates became police officers and as luck would have it, Dave Ames, a fellow LPHS grad, was the desk sergeant that night. Enroute to the police station, I kept reciting the license plate info – I remembered four numbers. I identified her as blonde, driving a Mercury Cougar. The next day two police officers stopped at her house, then swung by Carter’s to say she told them “the sun was low on the horizon, I stopped, helped the young lady to her feet, asked if she was okay and she said she was.” That never happened and we took our respective stories to court, a full day in the local courthouse, which I arranged with my boss to be my day off. She got a ticket for a rolling stop. My parents’ homeowner’s insurance paid for the bike repair and I never rode a bicycle again.

Fortunately, the accident did not tarnish the rest of my 1976.

As mentioned above, the Bicentennial was hardly a one-day event and a big attraction that year was the Parade of Tall Ships in New York, an event officially called “Operation Sail Parade”. Those tall ships came from all over the world to gather for this 200th birthday extravaganza.

After the hoopla, one tall ship docked along the Detroit River near what is now Hart Plaza. A friend and I made an impromptu trip downtown to get a glimpse of this vessel, which was built in Norway. The Christian Radich was quite majestic, even without the sails hoisted. We met some of the young crew members that likewise hailed from Norway. My friend and I spoke no Norwegian and the crew spoke no English, so there was a lot of smiling, but sadly no pics … this time anyway. Two days later, sails up, the Christian Radich headed to Toronto.

Well that worked out perfectly because my Carter’s coworker Leslie and I had planned a week-long vacation to Toronto and planned to stay with my grandmother who lived close to the Toronto Exhibition. Leslie and I had tickets for two concerts that week, The Beach Boys and Chicago. Lucky for us, we got to climb aboard and walk the wooden decks of the Christian Radich which was docked on Lake Ontario, close to the Ex’s fairgrounds. Thankfully, this time I had toted my camera.

Like before, it was fun to visit with the cadets, who ranged in age from 15 to 18 years old. I said I might have spoken to (more like smiled at) some of them while they were docked in Detroit.

Again, the language barrier was not really an issue and instead lots of smiles were exchanged like before. Leslie captured me taking the wheel like a boss; perhaps I’d been at the helm of a tall ship in a previous life? 🙂

Leslie also got a shot of me with one of those young crew members.

The Christian Radich is no longer a training vessel for the Norwegian Merchant Navy. It has received prizes in sailboat races and now does charter voyages. A few years ago I found a virtual tour of the vessel, inside and outside and learned how it was all computerized now. Next year there will be a special cruise marking her 90th birthday.

A few more glimpses back at the Bicentennial.

There were special license plates created for some states for the Bicentennial and, as you’d suspect, some were red, white and blue. I still had my VW Bug when I got the Michigan Bicentennial plate, but the picture I had of it was blurry – you can see the plate clearly on my 1977 Pacer.

Even if you weren’t old enough to drive and still wanted to partake in some Bicentennial mania, collecting the specially minted quarters, one from each state in the union, was a fun, year-long project. People, young and old collected the quarters and placed them into a cardboard folder with 50 slotted spots, one for each state’s quarter.

This coin below was not from a particular state, but generic and instead featured a Colonial drummer boy with a victory torch encircled by 13 stars, representing the original colonies.

Since I ran the cash register at Carter’s along with waitressing/tips, I had access to lots of these quarters and I began collecting them. I fell short of collecting the complete set of Bicentennial quarters, so I likely ended up using them for bus fare once I started at Wayne State University that Fall.

The photo up top of the vintage-looking patriotic peace sign is my own photograph. I was at the grocery store and saw a display of 4th of July paraphernalia and bought this koozie since I had planned on a Bicentennial post.

I also did this ink-and-wash patriotic painting.

I’ll likely see quite a few flags and bunting displayed on my daily constitutional, that is if I don’t melt first in this ongoing heatwave!

In next week’s post, I’ll flash forward to 2026 for America’s 250th birthday. I recently walked through an amazing display of 250 flags, one for each year since 1776. There were Betsy Ross flags; most were the Stars and Stripes. It was an interesting, albeit windy, walk and I captured the scene so you can enjoy it too.

Happy Independence Day everyone – click here for your Jacquie Lawson card.