Reborn on the Fourth of July
It's sometimes said that great harbor cities don't appreciate their harbors, so the city of New York must be an exception. Look what happens every Fourth of July. For years without missing, regular as clockwork, Macy's fireworks display has locked-down the harbor with skies in eruption, which the masses trek shoreward to see. Around either side of that date, the fireworks season brings the burghers of Manhattan, the boaters and bathers of the Boroughs to their esplanades and beaches. Few of them know how those big black barges full of fireworks got there, but lo and behold, there they are.
Feature: Independence Day
What do you get when you spend 19 hours at a Fourth of July party onboard a tugboat in NY harbor? A sunburn, welts from hurled bagels, about 12,000 calories and some incredibly good memories, Don Sutherland found. Officially it's Independence Day, but everyone calls it the Fourth of July. Its inalienable rights accrue to the common man, whose life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness necessitate keeping things simple. And is any form of theater simpler than a fireworks dispay? No plot to keep up with, no dialog to follow, just plenty of action. America feasts during many of its holidays, but with varying complication - where Thanksgiving is an elaboration of side dishes and stuffings and sauces, July Fourth is plain barbecue. Sauces? What do you call mustard and ketchup?
