Now that parade days are behind me, Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. Growing up in Silver City, the morning of the Fourth was always consumed with The Parade. My mother was in Full Broadcast Mode, doing her regular 7:15 a.m. radio show, and then heading downtown to announce the parade. It seemed someone in the family was always in the parade, and once I was in junior high, it was always I.
Parades are much more fun to watch than be in unless you can be a politician in a fun car with the A/C on. Parades are hot. Fourth of July parades are the hardest on the marching band and those immediately behind the horses. By the time the thing is over, sunburn and heat exhaustion are real things, and everyone needs a shower and a nap.
After everyone was rested and refreshed in my family, there were a few sacrosanct traditions: a cookout, Eskimo Pies, fireworks, and watching the musical 1776. I still know the entire score by heart.
I am three decades into largely parade-less July Fourths with few regrets. And the same traditions largely hold, especially monsoon season beginning the afternoon of the Fourth.
As I have had the privilege of reading a little history over the years, I like thinking about what Independence Day started worldwide. It terrified Europe. Poland established a constitution in 1791 (I don't think it lasted very long, thanks to the Prussians and the Russians). France established its republic, very messily, in 1792. Everyone else's Independence Day in the Western Hemisphere is an idea they stole from us, and Canada didn't even get there until 1982.
I realize this makes me sound like an obnoxiously proud American. That's just fine.
Our country's founding had several things going for it: a mother country across an ocean; internal political factions who didn't want a civil war or possess a guillotine; native residents already largely subdued by the original colonizers. Essentially, the first residents of the United States had a sparsely populated territory to themselves an ocean away from the great powers of Europe. It was a perfect setting to build a nation during the Enlightenment.
It stands to the ideas of the era and the minds of the people who wrote our founding documents that those documents still work 248 years later.
Last summer I got to see 1776 live. I missed the part where the production was described as an all-female cast. I still knew all the words, and Benjamin Franklin was still wry and chuckling while played by a Black woman and John Adams still a pain in everyone's backside. Somehow, it worked.
Like the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the drama and human story of 1776 works no matter the cast. Some ideas simply work no matter the context.
(Not everything is as timeless as the Declaration of Independence. Eskimo Pies were renamed in 2021, as "Eskimo" is considered offensive to the Inuit, Yupik and Aleut peoples.)
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at
