Big Bang on the Bay: the Third's better than the Fourth

Here’s something that we just found stuck to the bottom of our mailbag: A letter from Founding Father John Adams. To be historically transparent, we have to admit that he didn’t send it to us. It was posted to Adams’ wife Abigail on July 3, 1776.

“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America,” Adams wrote in the not overly romantic missive. “It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Adams’ blushingly enthusiastic devotion to the Second of July went unreciprocated from one end of the continent to the other. You’ll find nary a Shew being thrown on July 2. Oh, there’ll be a sport or two being played, and there’ll for sure be guns (though some historians believe Adams meant “Gnus,” not “Guns”), but no wild celebrations.

Instead, all that Pomp and Parade was given to July 4.

Adams went with July 2, because that was the day the Continental Congress actually voted for independence. July 4 won out, because that was the date marked on the first written version of the declaration, which was signed in a ceremony on Aug. 2.

For as long as we can remember, which tus out to be four years, we have celebrated on July 3, throwing out Aug. 2 as an outlier and splitting the difference between Julys 2 and 4, and also because July 3 is when the best fireworks show (or Illuminations Shew, if you prefer) in town has been thrown for the last four years.

Big Bang on the Bay is a huge bash held in and around the Boathouse on the Bay, with vintage aircraft flyovers, skydivers, a sailing regatta, a family-style barbecue dier from Naples Rib Co., and fireworks blasted off from a barge just yards from the patio.

There’s a fairly sizeable charitable aspect to Big Bang, which is engineered by the always affable John Morris. This year’s adopted charity will be one of our favorites, Children Today, which provides critical child care, preschool and family support services to some of the most vulnerable families in Long Beach.

Morris scratches up the considerable expense incurred by the fireworks show by scoring donations from residents of the nearby Naples and Peninsula communities, which are treated to the fireworks show by coincidence of location, and who throw private July 3 parties of their own, as well as selling patio spots for $95 a throw.

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The rest of us pay $50 per person, which includes food, and that money, says Morris, is all gravy, and goes to Children Today.

Last year’s recipient was Action Sports Kids Foundation (ASK), which scored a $35,000 check from the Bash.

The event goes from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Boathouse on the Bay in the Alamitos Bay Marina. You can purchase tickets online now at www.boathouseonthebay.com or www.childrentoday.org, or call 562-493-1100.

Parking is rugged and you can be looking at a half-mile stroll from Seal Beach. Alteative transportation is recommended if you don’t want to walk off your meal.

Contact Tim Grobaty at 562-714-2116, [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter.