It's not too late to make a patriotic suggestion

You know it’s probably not the greatest sign of an important event’s popularity when no one’s quite sure what to call it.

Fifty years ago, it was simple — America’s Bicentennial.

Short and to the point … easy rolling off the tongue … perfect.

Gas was 59 cents a gallon, you could go to a rock concert for $7.50 and a movie ticket set you back a couple of bucks. If you wanted to mail a letter, it was 13 cents. A pound of ground beef cost $1.27. A gallon of milk was $1.65. If you were in the house-buying market — and I swear this is true — the average price was 38 grand.

In the summer of 1976, part of my job with Parks & Rec was painting everything in sight either red, white or blue. The entire town had caught Bicentennial fever, and politics was an afterthought. Sure, some resented the presence of a congressman from Michigan in the White House, a man who had received exactly zero votes in the last presidential election, but it was fine.

Even after he’d granted Richard Nixon, who’d resigned in disgrace two years earlier, a full and absolute pardon, folks just shrugged.

As long as the governor of Georgia kept rolling up the primary victories and Ronald Reagan wasn’t yet a phenomenon, people went about their lives, knowing that Armageddon wasn’t imminent.

Chairman Mao died, Vietnam reunited, a few countries boycotted the Olympics and something called VCR tapes was introduced.

In the midst of all that, America found time for the Freedom Train and the Tall Sails regatta, even as historic sites like Colonial Williamsburg and Independence Hall broke attendance records.

In short, the Bicentennial was a blast … with amazing fireworks.

This time around, however, with Birthday No. 250 looming, I’ve yet to encounter a single person, older or younger, who seems to care.

As I alluded to at the outset of this essay, what do you even call it?

There seem to be a number of, well, rather uninspiring choices:

—The Semiquincentennial

—The Bisesquincetennial

—The Sestercentennial

—The Quartermillennium

—America250

That last one, for as much as it sounds like a stock car race and has the marketing appeal of a high-grain breakfast cereal, seems to have stuck, which is unfortunate. You’d have thought AI — Almost Intelligent, as I call it — could have come up with something better.

Then again, in the grand scheme of things, a country that’s been around for 250 years isn’t exactly among the world’s leaders, when you consider the following global birthday approximations:

—Egypt: 6000 B.C.

—India: 3300 B.C.

—China: 2070 B.C.

—Greece: 800 B.C.

—Japan: 660 B.C.

Even relative newborns like Russia (882 A.D.), Great Britain (927), Portugal (1143), Ireland (1542) and Italy (1720) have longer histories, which isn’t to say they’re better or worse.

It’s just a fact.

With that inarguable truth in mind, I’d like to offer a declaration of not-quite-250 memories that make me proud to be an American:

“The Catcher in the Rye” … the Twist … “The Twilight Zone” … electricity … the View-Master … the Mustang Fastback … “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” … the cheeseburger … Wrigley Field … the First Amendment … Levi’s … the banana split … Motown … Old Spice … “Playboy” … Mickey Mantle … air conditioning … Ernest Hemingway … interstate highways … the Civil Rights Act … “Peanuts” … Johnny Carson … Emily Dickinson … Jackie Robinson … Franklin Roosevelt … baseball cards … “Ghoulardi” … Muhammad Ali … Colt 45 … JBL speakers … the Grand Canyon … Choc-ola … steamed oysters … the bikini … “Laugh-In” … the Monkees … the Cowsills … Ben Franklin … the New York Yankees … Kool-Aid … the Super Ball … “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” … Johnny Cash … the Dewey Decimal System … lava lamps … Frankenmuth … Nantucket … the Outer Banks … “The Outer Limits” … turning right on red … “To Kill a Mockingbird” … “Jaws” … Barack Obama … Marilyn Monroe … “Mad” magazine … “Blood on the Tracks” … boogie boards … weekly bowling … Little League … Election Day … Thanksgiving … Notre Dame football … the Righteous Brothers … the Beach Boys … Patti Smith … Nirvana … Putt-Putt golf … Cooperstown … Virginia Beach … Key West … drive-in movies … “Easy Rider” … Robert Frost … George Carlin … Raquel Welch … Pete Maravich … Rollos … Duane Allman … the Swinger camera … “The Great Gatsby” … “The Andy Griffith Show” … Walter Cronkite … Play-Doh … transistor radios … “Chiller Theater” … stereo headphones … wiffle ball … James Dean … Jim Brown … Andy Warhol … Babe Ruth … Silly Putty … Trivial Pursuit … “The Sting” … John F. Kennedy … Indian Lake … Woodstock … Jack Daniel’s … the Gettysburg Address … Sting Ray bikes … pinball … jazz … silver dollars … “Tranquility Base here: The Eagle has landed.”

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where everyone’s memories are to be treasured.