Ah, yes. Another Fourth
I really wasn’t going to write another blog on this site about the Fourth of July.
After all, if you look through our archives, you’ll see I’ve written numerous times about this grand and glorious holiday of ours.
But this past Monday morning — as I was driving Jessi the Dog to daycare — I thought about how this Fourth is, after all, a Very Big One.
It’s our 250th, for gosh sakes! Our Semiquincentennial (and, yes, I did have to look that up to make sure of the spelling).
Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to wax eloquently about the “meaning” and “importance” of this celebration.
Many others have, and will, write about that.
No, I’ve instead decided to try to jog your memories about the Fourths you’ve celebrated — by jogging my memory about some of my Fourths.
Look, we’ve all been around for plenty of Fourths in our lives.
In my case, incredibly enough, I’ve been alive for nearly 31 percent of all the Fourths our nation has ever celebrated.
31 percent!
How many do I really remember? Not many.
But if you’re willing to go down Memory Lane with me — mine, and perhaps yours — read on.
The earliest Fourth I remember was at a fireworks show at the Fresno Fairgrounds. I have no idea how old I was.
But I do remember Mom and Dad and I had come early to get decent seats in the grandstand.
And I vividly recall being scared — really scared — when those boomers were shot into the sky that night.
That thunderous noise might even have made me cry.
But why not? I was probably only 15 or 20 years old at the time (insert laugh track).
I don’t remember how many times Mom and Dad took me to the fairgrounds for the Fourth. But now, all these years later, if you go to the Fairgrounds on Independence Day, you’ll see — nothing.
No more fireworks there. They’re being shot into the sky downtown at the Grizzlies’ stadium (yes, we took the kids there when we were all much younger), or in Clovis, or at the waterparks, or at Shaver or Bass lakes — or in many of our Valley’s small towns.
We care about the Fourth around these parts. Big-time.
Fast-forward from that early exposure to fireworks noise and color to July 4, 1976. A Sunday.
Sharon and I were about to celebrate our first anniversary (we’d been married on July 5 the year before, but on this July 5, a Monday, I’d be working at Channel 30).
So we were planning to go to Sharon’s parents’ ranch out at Shaw and McCall in Clovis. I knew — being a TV guy — that CBS was planning very, very big coverage of our Bicentennial that Sunday.
I tuned in at 8 a.m. and saw Walter Cronkite — the great, great Walter Cronkite — anchoring from New York
It was his first on-air hour that day, and when he finally got off that anchor desk, it was 16 — yes, 16 — hours later.
Walter and CBS were on an incredible 16 consecutive hours that July 4 — with live shots from everywhere in the nation. It was called, “In Celebration of Us.”
Dan Rather was at Gettysburg. Charles Collingwood was in Boston, covering Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops Bicentennial concert and fireworks. Charles Kuralt was covering the Tall Ships that were sailing into New York harbor for the occasion.
And there were dozens of other live shots throughout the day. Unbelievable.
I don’t remember where all the other CBS people were — but I remember thinking this was amazing coverage during a time when it was hard to get live shots from anywhere.
There were no satellites. AT&T landlines had to be set up at every live location CBS was at.
CBS. 16 live hours.
NBC managed 10 live hours that day. And ABC could not compete. Not even close.
I was so impressed with CBS that I sent the network a note, congratulating Cronkite and everyone else.
I got a nice letter in return from someone at the network. I kept that letter for decades. I don’t know where it is now, but I hope it’s in one of the history “bins” we’ve filled in our garage.
Maybe Bradley or Amy can find it — when those bins become theirs. Maybe they’ll be proud of their dad for getting a response from CBS “way back when.”
The next big Fourth I remember came four years later — in 1980 — in Ames, Iowa.
We were in Ames because I was teaching journalism at Iowa State University and Sharon was producing a talk show on WOI Radio.
That Fourth came a few weeks after Dad had passed away in Fresno. We had spent time there and had just come back to Ames.
That night — which actually might have been the Third because that’s when Ames usually has its fireworks show — we were lying on a blanket on the grass outside Hilton Coliseum, watching the amazing and beautiful pyrotechnics
Three years later, in 1983, we were in Detroit for the Fourth. Yes, I was back in the broadcasting biz, producing our 11 p.m. newscast on WJBK-TV.
We rented a copter and sent a photog up to take pics of the tremendous fireworks display that would take place at 10 p.m. over the Detroit River.
And at 11, I opened that newscast with some of the most beautiful aerial fireworks displays I’d ever seen. It was gorgeous. We showed pics of it not just off the top of the newscast, but before every commercial break, during our closing shots at the end of the newscast, and every place else I could figure out to insert those pics.
Yes, I knew how to produce newscasts, if I say so myself. I was proud of that one. (By the way, I’m convinced I could still produce newscasts — if I were only 10 years younger. Well, maybe 20 years younger. Or 30.)
My next memory of a Fourth came when we had returned to California and I was working at KNBC in Los Angeles in the 1990’s.
I had the night off, and we had gone to a Dodgers game.
I can’t remember who won that game — or even who played.
But I remember what happened afterward.
Amy and Bradley were with us. After the game, fans at Dodger Stadium got to go down onto the field to watch the fireworks that were going to be set off above the stadium.
And there we were — sitting on the infield grass on that unforgettable evening, as those fireworks lit up the sky above us.
If I could have bottled that night and kept it forever, I’d have done it. Trust me.
We spent more than a few years in and around San Francisco when I was working at KPIX-TV. But seeing fireworks in the city was nearly impossible because of the summer fog that simply devoured the place.
Fireworks were usually set off in or near the Marina, but the fog was usually so low and horrible, you could not see them.
(I remember one memorable year when the Chronicle put a fireworks photo from the Marina — in black-and-white, of course — on its front page on July 5. Then readers pointed out that the fog had been so thick the night before, no one saw any fireworks from that spot. The mighty Chron had used a file photo from years earlier on its front page and tried to convince readers it was from the night before.)
Sharon and I were in Paso Robles in 2018 or so — we had moved to what we thought would be our “permanent” home — and attended a really nice fireworks display in the downtown park on the Fourth.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the last fireworks display ever to be held there, because officials said it was far too dangerous to hold that display next to downtown buildings.
They were right, of course. The display was moved to land outside the city in future years. This year, it will be held at Barney Schwartz Park on the outskirts of town.
If you’re in the area, you might want to see it. The park is lovely, and the pre-fireworks party, and the fireworks themselves, are free.
Of course, there will be other fireworks shows on California’s Central Coast this coming Saturday the Fourth — among them in Pismo Beach and Cayucos. But the potential problem with each is — fog. Paso will have no fog.
And that, friends, is your “where to go on the Fourth” tip, if you’re not in Fresno or Clovis. You’re welcome.
Since we’re come back to Fresno (to yet another “permanent” retirement home — yes, this time it’s for real) — we’ve confined our Fourth viewing to the great Capitol Fourth show on PBS and to NBC’s coverage of Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show in New York City.
Finding parking is much easier when all we need is a space in front of our TV.
And speaking of the Capitol Fourth broadcast on PBS — which I highly recommend — it’s going to be on Friday, July 3, this year.
Hundreds of thousands of people will watch it live from the West Lawn of the Capitol.
And here’s a secret — relayed to me by Sharon and Amy, who went to DC years ago (I was still working and could not go) to see, among other things, the fireworks show there.
The secret is — PBS does a full dress rehearsal for the show the day before it’s scheduled to go live. And those in the know in DC attend that performance — not the one the next day that will be jammed to the gills with people.
And the deal is — PBS records that dress rehearsal so that if the actual Fourth show gets rained out — the network will show the recording made the night before.
So yes, Amy and Sharon went to the dress rehearsal and were able to get right up to the stage where Barry Manilow was holding court with a magnificent performance.
And then they called me and told me exactly where they had been and how I could see them the next night, if the live show on the Fourth was rained out.
But it did not rain on the Fourth — so PBS broadcast the live show, not the recorded one. Darn.
The next time you’re in DC and want to go see the Capitol Fourth broadcast in person — save yourself some time and effort and attend the 
much-less attended dress rehearsal the day before. And that, my friends, is yet another tip. We’re full of them today, aren’t we?
Last year — our first at our Fresno condo — we were over in Carmel on the Fourth (left). It was a Friday, and we had decided to go over to stay on the Fourth and the next day at the Tickle Pink Inn south of town.
We went because we had stayed at the Tickle Pink exactly 50 years earlier — July 5 — for our honeymoon.
It looked exactly the same as it had a half-century before. What a time-travel trip that was.
This year, the Fourth is this coming Saturday. Our children are gone, of course — Bradley in New Orleans with Nicole, and Amy in Copenhagen with Steve.
So we’ll be watching fireworks on our TV, as has become our custom.
Before that, the HOA in our complex will hold its annual Fourth gathering in the morning. Mimosas. Treats. We’ll probably go.
Not as exciting as some of the other Fourths we’ve spent during our lifetimes, but still satisfying, we think.
And Fresno has done its part to celebrate this coming Fourth — buying 1,000 big flags the city has put on streetlights on the city’s major north-south thoroughfares (right)
Nice, Fresno. You’ve got the spirit.
And that’s it for me. I hope reading this holiday missive has triggered your memories of Fourths from long ago.
If it has — my mission has been accomplished.
Happy Fourth, my friends!