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Independence Hall photograph via Wikimedia Commons.
America turns two hundred and fifty years old this year, and that is worth celebrating — not just with speeches and fireworks, but with the kind of joy and pride that reminds us why this country is unlike any other.
Jay Payleitner has written a book that does exactly that. Happy Semiquincentennial, America is a collection of 250 names, places, and things that are distinctly and wonderfully American. It’s the kind of read that will put a smile on your face and also stir something deep in your chest.
Here’s what strikes me about a book like this. It’s not just the big things — the Grand Canyon, the Bald Eagle, the Star-Spangled Banner — though those absolutely deserve their place. It’s the small things too. Friday Night Football. Route 66. Corn mazes. Black coffee. The Teddy Bear, which got its name during Teddy Roosevelt’s first term in office. Popsicles — full of food dye banned in Europe, and yet here we all are.
It’s the baseball phrases woven so deeply into our daily speech that we don’t even notice them anymore. Cover all the bases. Heavy hitter. Whole new ballgame. America invented a sport and then used it to build an entire vocabulary!
It’s Lou Gehrig calling himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. It’s Babe Ruth. It’s John Philip Sousa. It’s Johnny Appleseed. It’s the grassroots, ordinary Americans who showed up, spoke up, and changed things.
That’s the point, isn’t it? Our American heritage isn’t stored only in grand museums and magnificent monuments. It lives in our food, our phrases, our festivals, our front yards. Every quirky, stubborn, creative, generous thing this country has produced over two hundred and fifty years is part of the same story — our story. That of a people who believed that freedom was worth building an entire culture around.
The big moments matter, but so does Groundhog Day and even beef jerky. So does the fact that Americans took pizza, hot dogs, and coffee from other cultures and made them entirely our own — because that’s what Americans do.
This 250th anniversary is worth marking with gratitude and with joy, for all of our American rituals big and small. The book Happy Semiquincentennial, America is a wonderful place to start. Find a copy on Amazon today, and celebrate the country you love.
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