How to Mark America's 250th Birthday in Your Own Town and With Your Own Family

Let me tell you what the big national celebration of America's 250th birthday cannot do for you. It cannot read the Declaration of Independence to your seven-year-old. It cannot walk your family to a cemetery two miles from your kitchen where a man who fought at the Revolution is buried under a stone nobody has cleaned in a century. It cannot introduce your teenager to the old gentleman at church who landed at Inchon. Only you can do those things, and they are better than any fireworks show anyone will ever put on.

Here is the idea, and then the plan. The Declaration's 250th year is not a thing the government does to you. It is a thing a free people does for itself, in its own town, with its own kids. Fireworks are lovely. I am in favor of fireworks. But a bang lasts about twelve minutes, and a grandfather's story lasts the rest of a child's life. So here is the do-it-yourself version, in six steps, with the specifics you need to carry each one out.

I will keep the steps plain and exact, because a playbook that wanders is a playbook nobody uses. You do not need to do all six. Pick the ones that fit your family, and do them well.

Step 1: Read the Declaration aloud, together

Start with the text, because everything else hangs on it. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776. It was first read to the public a few days later, on July 8, in Philadelphia, and General Washington had it read to the army in New York on July 9. In other words, from the very first week, this was a document meant to be heard out loud by ordinary people. Do it the way they did.

How to do it:

1. Print a copy, or borrow a book that has the full text. The National Archives displays the original in Washington, and its text is public. Use a version with the original wording and spelling.
2. Set aside about fifteen minutes. The whole thing, with its list of grievances, takes less time than a TV episode.
3. Read it in turns. Give the opening paragraph to the youngest child who can read it, and the pledge at the end to the oldest person in the room.
4. Stop at the second paragraph and ask one question: "What does 'unalienable' mean?" Let them guess. Then read the line again: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
5. Read the grievances, and notice how specific they are. Taxes without consent. Soldiers quartered in homes. Judges dependent on the King's will. A child can follow that. It reads like a legal complaint because it is one.
6. End with the final sentence, the pledge of "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor," and then ask what each person thinks they would be willing to risk for something they believed. No wrong answers.

Tip: a family that does this once will tend to do it every July. That is how traditions begin.

Step 2: Find a Revolutionary War veteran buried near you

This is the step that changes how a family sees its own neighborhood. There are far more Revolutionary War graves in ordinary American towns than most people suspect. The soldiers were farmers, blacksmiths and shopkeepers who went home when the fighting stopped, and they are buried in churchyards and family plots from Maine to Georgia.

How to find one:

1. Start with the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR, founded in 1890, keeps a genealogical research system with records of the Revolutionary patriots its members have documented, searchable by name, and its volumes of lineage records are held in many public libraries. The Sons of the American Revolution, founded in 1889, maintain a similar patriot index.
2. Call or email your local DAR or SAR chapter. Chapters often keep lists of patriots buried in their county and sometimes hold grave-marking ceremonies. Ask whether any need a marker or a cleaning. Chapter members are usually delighted to be asked.
3. Check with your county historical society and your public library's local history room. Many have cemetery surveys done decades ago, listing the burials by name with notes on the ones who served.
4. Use the National Archives. It holds the Revolutionary War pension files. Congress passed a general pension law in 1818 and a far broader one in 1832 that covered most surviving veterans, which means that thousands of old men filed sworn statements about their service. These statements, in the veterans' own words as written down by clerks, are one of the great sources of American history, and they are open to the public.
5. Visit the grave. Bring a soft brush and water, not chemicals, and do not scrub a worn stone hard. Photograph it. Write down the exact wording.
6. Ask your town or church whether anyone maintains the cemetery. If not, ask who owns it. A cemetery with an owner can be cleaned up and one without an owner is a matter for the town clerk.

When you stand at that stone, tell the children one thing: this man lived within walking distance of where you sleep, and he decided that a free country was worth a very bad winter.

Step 3: Visit a battlefield or historic site run by the National Park Service

The National Park Service, created in 1916, looks after a remarkable list of places where the founding actually happened. A few within reach of nearly every region:

• Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, which includes Independence Hall, where the Declaration was adopted and the Constitution was drafted.
• Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania, site of the Continental Army's winter encampment of 1777 to 1778.
• Minute Man National Historical Park, Massachusetts, where the war began at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.
• Saratoga National Historical Park, New York, site of the 1777 victory that helped bring France into the war.
• Morristown National Historical Park, New Jersey, where the army wintered in 1779 to 1780.
• Cowpens National Battlefield and Kings Mountain National Military Park, South Carolina, and Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, North Carolina, three Southern battlegrounds of 1780 and 1781.
• Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia, which includes the Yorktown battlefield where the war was effectively decided.

A note: the spot where Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, is protected in state parks on the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides rather than in the National Park system. If you want to make a trip of it, check which agency runs the site you plan to visit.

How to make the trip count:

1. Pick one site and plan one day. Do not try to see six.
2. Check the park's website for hours, programs and any ranger-led talks before you go. Hours and programs change, so confirm them.
3. Ask the kids to bring one question each, written down. At the visitor center, ask a ranger to help find the answer. Rangers love this.
4. Walk the ground. A battlefield is a map you can stand inside. Find the high ground and ask why the commander wanted it.
5. Read the monuments, and the older ones in particular. The people who put them up in the nineteenth century wrote what they believed was worth remembering.
6. Afterward, have the children draw or write what they saw. A page of a child's own words is worth a shelf of souvenirs.

If you are looking for background reading before you go, Why Lexington Green and Concord Bridge Started a War on April 19, 1775 and Valley Forge Was a Winter of Hunger That Turned Farmers Into an Army cover two of those sites, and Yorktown in October 1781 and How a French Fleet Helped Trap Cornwallis covers the third.

Step 4: Interview an older veteran

The men who fought the Revolution are beyond our reach. The people who fought in the wars of the last century are not, and they will not be for long. This is the most urgent step on the list, and the one most often put off.

How to do it:

1. Choose someone you actually know or can be introduced to: a relative, a neighbor, a member of your congregation, a local VFW or American Legion post member. Ask permission first, and be ready to hear no. Some veterans do not wish to talk about it, and that is theirs to decide.
2. Consider the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Congress created it in 2000 to collect and preserve firsthand accounts of American veterans, and it publishes free instructions for conducting and submitting an interview. Following its guidelines makes your recording useful to historians, not just to your family.
3. Prepare a short list of open questions. Where did you grow up? Why did you enlist, or how did you get called? What was basic training like? What did you eat, and what did you do on a day off? Who do you think of most often? What do you want young people to know?
4. Start with the plain details of daily life. People talk about big things after they have been asked about small ones.
5. Record the conversation with the person's permission, using a phone or a simple recorder, and put the date and place at the start. Take notes as backup.
6. Let silences sit. A pause is often where the real answer is coming from.
7. Never press for details of combat. If the veteran offers, listen. If not, move on.
8. Say thank you at the end, and then do something more: send a copy of the transcript, or a typed card, a week later.

For a feel for what these stories can hold, see The Four Chaplains Gave Away Their Life Jackets When the Dorchester Went Down, Sergeant York Captured 132 Germans in the Argonne and Went Home to Tennessee and Desmond Doss Refused to Carry a Rifle and Saved About 75 Men on Okinawa, and the plain fact behind all of them: each one of those men was somebody's neighbor.

Step 5: Display the flag properly

There is a federal Flag Code, part of Title 4 of the United States Code, and it is worth knowing. It started as a set of rules adopted by a national conference of flag organizations in 1923 and was written into law in 1942. It is advisory in nature, and the Supreme Court held in Texas v. Johnson (1989) that burning a flag in political protest is protected speech, so no one is going to arrest you for getting it wrong. The code is guidance for those who want to honor the flag. Here are the main points, in plain terms:

1. When to fly it. The custom is to display the flag from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open. If you fly it at night, light it. An all-weather flag may be flown in bad weather.
2. Where the blue field goes. The union, the blue field with the stars, is the place of honor. Hang the flag so the union is at the top and to the observer's left, whether the flag is displayed horizontally or vertically against a wall or in a window.
3. Never let it touch the ground, the floor, or water, and do not carry it flat or horizontally. Carry it aloft and free.
4. Do not use it as clothing, bedding or drapery, and do not use it as a ceiling cover or a decoration. For bunting, the Code calls for blue, white and red material with the blue above, the white in the middle and the red below.
5. Do not write or print on it, and do not use it in advertising. Paper napkins and boxes with its image on them should be thrown away after use, not kept.
6. Half-staff. The flag is raised first to the peak and then lowered to the half-staff position, and raised again to the peak before being lowered for the day. The President and governors set half-staff dates by proclamation; check official announcements before assuming a date.
7. Retire a worn flag respectfully. The Code says that a flag no longer fit for display should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning. Many American Legion posts, VFW posts and Scout troops hold retirement ceremonies and will take your old flag. Call ahead.
8. The salute and the pledge. When the flag passes in a parade or is raised, people in civilian clothes may stand at attention and place the right hand over the heart. Veterans and service members may render the military salute.

The site's flag page has a quick reference to the Code if you want the details at hand.

Step 6: Propose a plaque or a public reading to your town council

Here is where a family becomes a community. Most towns would welcome a reading of the Declaration, a plaque, or a marked grave, and most never get asked.

How to do it:

1. Find out how your council works. Look up the date and agenda posting rules, and whether the meeting has a public comment period. This information is public, and the town clerk can tell you.
2. Decide on one request. A councilman can say yes to one clear item far more easily than to a vague hope. Examples: a public reading of the Declaration on the town green or at a council meeting during the anniversary year; a marker at the grave of a Revolutionary veteran in a town cemetery; a plaque at a historic building; a permanent display in the library.
3. Do the homework first. Bring the name of the veteran, the proof of service from the pension file or a DAR record, a photograph of the grave, and a draft of the marker text.
4. Ask who can pay or who can approve. Many towns have a historical commission or committee. Many states have a historical commission or preservation office with a process for official markers. Private land requires the owner's permission. Service clubs, a local DAR or SAR chapter, the American Legion, and churches have raised money for markers many times.
5. Speak briefly. Three minutes at the microphone is typical. State the request, the reason, the cost, and who is doing the work. Hand over a one-page summary.
6. Offer to do the work. The easiest yes in local government is the one that comes with volunteers.
7. Follow up in writing. Thank the council whether or not it votes yes, and ask what the next step is.

The deeper point is that self-government is a habit, and the town meeting is where it is learned. The Founders were not theorists in a library. They were men who had sat on vestries, county courts and town committees for years. The Revolution came out of habits like these.

Why bother

Because the alternative is a country that treats its 250th year as a shopping occasion.

That is the part I want you to carry away. The history we owe our children does not live in a museum in Washington. It lives in the people near us and in the records that are public and free for the asking. A pension file at the National Archives is a letter from a man who was there. A stone in a churchyard is a place to stand. A veteran at a kitchen table is a book that is going out of print.

And here is the beautiful part: the cost is almost nothing. A flag, a printed page, a day trip, a tape recorder, a three-minute speech. This is the cheapest patriotism ever invented and the most durable. It does not depend on any administration, any party or any program. It depends on you.

If you want more of the story to tell while you do it, America at 250 and What the Centennial and the Bicentennial Can Teach Us looks at how earlier generations marked the country's big birthdays, and How to Find an Ancestor Who Served in an American War Using Public Records is a longer how-to on the record-hunting part of Step 2. The Founders page is a good companion for the family reading.

The case in brief

1. The Declaration was written to be read aloud to ordinary people, so start there: fifteen minutes, in turns, with the pledge at the end.
2. Revolutionary graves and pension files are in your own county, and the DAR, the SAR, the National Archives and your local historical society can help you find one.
3. National Park Service sites and state parks put the founding under your feet, and a single well-planned day beats a rushed tour.
4. Interview a veteran while you can, using the Library of Congress Veterans History Project's guidelines, and treat the flag by the Code.
5. Ask your town council for one clear thing, a reading or a marker, and bring volunteers.

What you can do: this week, pick one of the six steps, put it on the calendar, and tell one other family so that two households do it together.